


Ad Meliora

by ggrantaire



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (presumably), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, First Kiss, M/M, Meddling Friends, Post-The Raven King, Pre-College AU, Slow Build, Some Fluff, Some angst, Some of everything, and then not-secret boyfriends, beach au, blue can kiss gansey now and who the fuck cares how they sorted it out au, everyone is somehow fucking alive au, friendcation au, nobody dies au, road trip au, secret boyfriends, silent mutual pining lord be with them, so much Meddling™
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 50,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5649193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ggrantaire/pseuds/ggrantaire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey is sick and tired of living in a world where Ronan hasn't asked Adam out yet. And he's got a plan to fix that.</p><p>Or: The one where Ronan, Adam, Gansey, Blue, and Noah all go on a vacation to the beach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You need to ask Adam on a date before we leave for college.”

Ronan nearly chokes. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

Gansey, curled on his couch, sock feet nestled in the cushions, doesn’t look up from his phone. He repeats himself, emphasizing _before we leave for college_. His eyes flick up over his glasses. “Or have I miscalculated something?” Gansey’s face is stoic, as serious about this as he is about anything else.

 Ronan, somewhat speechless from the seemingly out-of-nowhere command, furrows his brow. Ronan fumbles for a way to get around the question without lying, especially on such short notice. He opts for making a vague gesture and taking a heavy step towards his room.

“ _Ro_ nan,” Gansey cries, flopping his phone face down. He scrambles to his feet, catching Ronan around the forearm. Ronan tries to shake him off, but Gansey holds tight. “Listen, sorry, I know better than to spring things on you out of nowhere, that was my bad. I’m sorry.” He puts his other hand to his chest. “But listen. This is urgent. I needed to get it said. You need to ask Adam on a date.”

There’s a pounding in Ronan’s chest that is caught somewhere between anger and anxiety. How long has Gansey been sitting on this information? How long has Gansey known? Can _everyone_ tell? An image of Gansey whispering to Blue about silly Ronan and his stupid crush flashes through Ronan’s mind, and it's enough to make him want to collapse all of Monmouth Manufacturing to rubble right then and there.

Gansey is standing at an awkward angle, fingers still wrapped around Ronan’s arm, eyes pleadingly raised.

“I don’t know _how_ ,” he finally says. It’s the first time Ronan has admitted verbally his feelings, to himself or anyone else; rationally, he knows that doesn’t change anything, but there’s a feeling deeper down than his mind, a feeling that’s much more human than brain matter, and it’s a feeling that tells him everything is more real when Gansey is involved.

And the way Gansey’s face lights up in response... Well, Ronan would be lying if he said it didn’t scare him a little bit. His fingers drop from Ronan’s arm, and he stands straight, pushing his glasses up. “Well, lucky for you, I have just the plan.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gansey’s plan involves a rented convertible, a trunk-full of snacks and suitcases, a CD case packed with mixtapes contributed by the entire group, and a month-long stay at a beach house on the east coast of Florida.

On the surface, it’s one last hurrah before college.

Beneath that, it is Gansey’s second attempt at being a wingman. Having tremendously offended Blue on his first attempt, he was banking on this one being more successful.

At nine in the morning on the day of their departure, it was already looking pretty good to Gansey.

Adam, who had just finished looking around under the hood of the rental car to make sure there were no unnoticed problems that could cost them money upon the return of the car, closes the sleek, blue hood with a soft click. “Everything looks great,” he announces, wiping his hands off on a rag.

From her perch on the trunk, Blue gives a cry of excitement. “Excellent!” She hops to the asphalt, landing next to where Gansey is leaned against the door of the car, and as she does so, her sunglasses fall from the top of her head to her face. She makes a face and pushes them back into her hair. Gansey catches her around the waist and pulls her over to him.

“Come on now,” he places her glasses back on her nose, grinning stupidly. “You look cooler this way.”

Blue sticks her tongue out at that, and then she runs a hand through his hair. “And you look cooler when you’re wearing _anything but_ those horrible boat sh—”

Ronan interrupts with a loud noise of disgust as he arrives on the scene, trailed by Noah. “Save the _touching_ for another time.” Ronan tries not to notice the way Adam’s eyes are glued to a grassy spot in the pavement, distinctly away from the other two.  He marches up to Gansey and holds open his hand, asking for the keys.

“Oh no you don’t,” Gansey says, stepping away from Blue and Ronan.

“But I _picked out_ the car,” Ronan protests, snatching for Gansey’s pocket.

“Yeah, well, maybe later!” he replies with a grin. “And you’re sitting in the back with Adam.”

The statement sounds loudly against Ronan’s eardrums. _Could anyone else hear how loaded that sentence was_? Ronan resists the urge to clench his fists.

After a pause, he adds, “And Noah, as long as he’s with us.”

“I’ll be there.” Noah’s voice is soft, but perfectly audible.

Then Noah is trying on Blue’s yellow sunglasses, Adam is getting a soda from the trunk, and the tension Ronan felt from Gansey’s statement dissipates.

Blue gets into the front seat, Adam is climbing into the middle, leaning over the front console to ask Blue something about how planning for college is going, and Noah hops into the side behind Blue.

“You’re being obvious,” Ronan growls as Gansey steps past him to the driver’s seat.

Gansey raises his eyebrows as if to say, _Really_? Then he rolls his eyes. “Am not.” And he climbs in.

Ronan closes his eyes for the briefest of moments before opening his side door and thundering inside.

“Something wrong, Lynch?”

He turns to look at Adam—too quickly, much too quickly. He’s sitting there, facing Ronan, one elbow on the console, forefinger pressed to his slightly-parted, freckled lips, and the sun is hitting his eyes at an angle that should be fucking illegal. His sandy hair is a little longer than it usually is, curling around his earlobes, pushed back past his brow line. His skin is tanned in the easy way that only the June sun can do.

It takes a glance a fourth-of-a-second long for Ronan to lose his breath.

“Just fine,” he scoffs, not unhappily. Then he stretches his hands above his head, knocking his knuckles against the roof, and leans back against the warm leather. “Put this roof down, and let’s get this show on the road, Dick.” His foot meets the back of Gansey’s seat.

“Right away.” Gansey fumbles to find the button to retract the roof and then catches Ronan’s eye in the rearview mirror and winks. It takes everything in Ronan not to groan in response to the gesture.

As Gansey starts the car, Adam leans back and pulls his seatbelt on with an easy smile. His gaze lands on Ronan, and Ronan carefully looks back. Adam gives his shoulder a shove, “C’mon, man. Relax. It’s vacation.”

A smile finds its way to Ronan’s lips. “Can’t believe you know the meaning of the word _vacation_.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“The first of many _friend_ cations to come!” Gansey announces with great verve as he messes with the CD player.

Different degrees of groans and sighs come from everyone in the car: Blue, loud and exasperated, because she can’t believe he just said _friendcation_ ; Noah, silent but with a dropped jaw, because he can’t believe he’s never thought of using that word until now; Ronan, pointed and short, because _God, you’re a loser_ ; Adam, more a laugh than a groan, because it’s truly a first and he’s glad to have such ridiculous friends to share it with.

The first length of the drive is to a Super 8, located just around the border of Georgia and Florida. It’s very near another ley line, and Gansey is hoping its proximity will allow Noah to come back, if he should disappear. They’re only staying there a night, and their beach house is located almost exactly on that same ley line, so he’ll be able to get there, definitely, even if he can’t make it to the Super 8. Noah had told Gansey not to worry—Super 8 wasn’t really up to his high standards, anyway.

To make up for his maybe-future-absence, Noah turns out to be mostly in charge of car entertainment.

“Here’s a game. People who aren’t evil, but have evil-sounding names.”  
Adam looks at Noah expectantly. “Like?”  
“Ronan Lynch.”

“I spy with my little eye… Something… Blue…”  
“Me?”  
“Yes!”  
“I spy with my little eye…” Ronan glances around the car. “Something… Dead.”

“Okay, okay, Would You Rather. Here’s one: would you rather… work at the circus full-time or part-time?”  
“What the fuck.”  
“Full-time.”  
“Is it a travelling circus? Because that affects my decision.”

“How about a joke? Knock-knock.”  
“Who’s there?”  
“Boo.”  
“No.”

Noah disappears halfway through a second game of I Spy, just around the time Gansey had been expecting that he might. They’ve still got hours and hours in the car to go, and Blue switched over to the driver’s seat at the last gas station, so they’ve been going exactly the speed limit for the past thirty minutes, and that’s enough to make Ronan want to fall asleep.

Gansey is holding Blue’s hand. She had protested quietly at first, saying she needed to keep both hands on the wheel, but all it took was a moment of Gansey’s pouting and fingertips prodding at the back of her hand to change her mind.

Ronan eyes their knotted fingers critically. He looks over to Adam—who has slid over to Noah’s vacated seat—and makes a face. Adam laughs without a sound and returns the face. A silent _I know, right_?

“What’re we gonna do now?” Ronan complains, voice raised over the wind noises that come with a convertible.

“More I Spy?” Gansey offers.

“No, that’s only fun with Noah. I think death might have made him colorblind.” Ronan taps his fingers against the seat. He sighs with far more fervor than necessary. “Better get some sleep, then.”

“It’s noon,” Blue protests.

“Well, at the speed this car is going, it feels like I’m being rocked to sleep, so.”

“We could stop for lunch,” Adam says.

“We just stopped for snacks!”

“It _is_ lunch time, Jane,” Gansey says, as though he’d just realized the fact.

She just clucks her tongue. “What do we want?”

“Milkshakes,” Adam says enthusiastically, leaning forward to wrap his arms around Gansey’s headrest in front of him.

Ronan’s eyes rest too long on the curve of his spine, of the triangle of skin that’s just appeared between the hem of Adam’s t-shirt and the belt loops of his jeans. He turns his face sharply to look outside the car.

“Lynch?”

“I want whatever Adam wants.” Ronan prays that he sounds casual.

Adam’s face lights up and he lifts a fist to pump knuckles with Ronan. Then he sits back and runs his fingers through his hair and then drags his hands back down over his face, tugging his hair down with them. Ronan absolutely does _not_ think about those being his own hands.

“I’m ready to be out of this car!” He throws his hand outside, palm open to the wind.

“We’ve been on the road for _three_ hours, _and_ we’ve already stopped once!” Blue cannot believe the things being said in this car.

“Well.” Adam offers no defense, one hand still over his eye.

Minutes later, Adam leans forward to point at a sign. “Steak n Shake! Three miles!”

 

* * *

 

 

Adam has a plain vanilla milkshake and everyone’s cherries—Blue’s because she doesn’t like cherries, Gansey’s because Gansey gives Adam things whenever he’ll let him, and Ronan’s because Ronan is head over heels for a boy who loves maraschino cherries.

Halfway through the meal, Ronan gets up to go to the bathroom, and he’s not even surprised when Gansey scrambles up behind him and tails him to the restrooms.

“Yes, Gansey?”

“Is there anything you want me to do for you?”

“Are you asking if I want you to suck my dick in a bathroom stall?”

“God, Lynch, about _Adam_.”

“What do you mean _about Adam_?” he asks as they disappear into the dingy, checker-tiled bathroom.

“Like… Say anything that could… Oh, you know.”

“I’m afraid I’m not well versed in understanding you when you’re at a lack for words.”

“I _mean_ , should I drop hints or do… I don’t know, _anything_ to help you out?”

Ronan contemplates the offer, but he can’t even think of anything that would be helpful. In fact, he’s assaulted by a number of images of things going completely wrong; it’s enough to make him cringe. “No, Gansey. Thanks, though. But _please_ don’t do anything.”

Back at the table, Blue leans across the table as soon as the boys are out of earshot. “Adam.”

“Yeah?”

“Question: Ronan.”

“That’s… not a question.” He takes a sip of milkshake, peering at her under raised eyebrows.

“Doesn’t he seem… Like… about you, doesn’t he seem…?”

If Adam hadn’t noticed exactly the same thing months ago, he would be baffled by Blue’s words, but instead he just scrunches up his face with a small sigh. “Yes. He does seem.”

“And do you also—I mean, do you seem… the same way? About him?”

Adam contemplates as long as he thinks is reasonable, given that Gansey and Ronan will be back any second. “I think… I have no idea. But, the thing is, it’s probably… our imaginations, he _can’t_ —can’t _like_ _me_ , of all people. I… I try not to think about it. Really. But now that I’ve said this to you, well. I don’t know how I feel.”

A wicked smile comes over Blue’s face. “I’ll help you—figure it out or make something happen, whatever. Can I help you? I won’t tell Gansey or Noah. But, well, Noah’s, like, psychic or something, but anyway, I won’t tell Gansey. Our secret. It’ll happen.”

Adam gives a wary smile, glancing towards the bathroom door, where Gansey and Ronan are now exiting. “Don’t do anything yet.” His stomach already feels like it’s clenching into a knot; he shouldn’t have said anything to her. Should have denied it outright.  

Ronan is…

God, he shouldn’t have said anything to Blue. Not when he doesn’t completely know what’s up with Ronan. He doesn’t know what’s up with Ronan in the real world, much less in his own brain. _Stupid_.

“Sure, sure.” Blue waves her hand airily.

Maybe she’ll forget about it.

Ronan sits down heavily and looks at Adam. “You’ve got ice cream on your nose.” Before Adam can even register what he’s said, Ronan wipes it off with his forefinger and puts it in his mouth. He returns to his food like everything’s normal.

Adam meets Blue’s eyes with a vaguely dazed expression. Blue gives Adam the smallest of smiles and an even smaller kick under the table. The knot in his stomach ebbs.

It’s Ronan.

It’s only Ronan.

Ronan drives the rest of the way to the Super 8; he starts out going twenty-five over the speed limit but slows to fifteen over when Gansey threatens to call the cops himself. Adam is sitting in the seat behind Ronan, and in the rearview mirror, Ronan can see the wind rushing through Adam’s hair and bits of his collarbone when his shirt flaps against his skin. For half a second, Ronan thinks his eyes have met Adam’s, but then he speeds up and focuses on the road.

It doesn’t take more than an hour before Noah flickers back into the car, holding tight onto Blue’s hand for energy.

“Would you rather—” His voice cuts in suddenly, spooking everyone but Blue, who had his cold touch as a forewarning. “—kiss Ronan or a block of wood.”

“I will drive this car off the road.”

“You’d hurt everyone except me.”

“The block of wood,” Blue says definitively. “Softer.”

“Okay, well would you rather… have to eat corn or peas for the rest of your life?”

“That’s a stupid question but corn,” Adam says, leaning his head against his headrest.

“Well you come up with something, then!” Noah says, making a face.

“Would you rather…” Adam starts slowly, “Ahm…”

“Mhmm,” Noah mumbles triumphantly, reaching up to adjust one of the pins in Blue’s hair.

 

* * *

 

 

The setting sun casts color all through Adam’s hair; it’s reflecting against everything, even the deep blue of the car and especially through Noah’s vaguely transparent body.

Noah taps his foot along to every song that comes on; he taps his fingers on whoever’s leg or seat or back is nearest.

Occasionally, Blue will cry, “ _Whose_ CD is this? You _like_ this song?” But she never complains.

Gansey is the singer in the group. Always loud. Always while making eye contact and pointing fingers as though he’s in a boy band.

Adam likes the loud songs, the joyful ones about youth and wide open spaces; he’ll hit his hand on the back of Ronan’s seat and then shout the chorus.

Ronan is the listener. Nowadays, the only time he sings is ironically, and he didn’t put any of those on his CD, lest he get left on the side of a highway somewhere. Ronan memorizes the habits of the others, though, predicting who Gansey will point to next, when Blue will offer constructive criticism, when Adam’s voice will cut through his consciousness.

And when the sun sets, things are quiet, though the music is still going.

“How much longer?” Adam’s voice is soft, right near his ear.

“Hell if I know, Parrish.” Ronan’s voice comes out clipped from surprise of him being so close. He looks out the side of his eyes to see Adam resting his chin next to the headrest.

“Mm,” he hums and reaches for Gansey’s phone, which is tucked in a cup-holder. “Ah! Twenty minutes. Did you know our exit is in three miles?”

“How would I have known that?”

“Aren’t you looking?”

“Thought you guys were looking.”

“Well,” Adam says lightly, scrolling through the list of turns. “Lucky I came up here.”

Gansey doesn’t tell them that he’d been looking, he just hadn’t brought it up yet. Gansey is too busy looking at Adam’s arm, folded behind Ronan’s headrest, his face oh so close to Ronan’s, his right forearm resting on the console—his upper arm looks like it might be touching Ronan’s.

Adam stays in that position for far longer than it takes him to look at the directions. He checks the weather, checks tomorrow’s weather, informs Gansey that a coupon for 10% off at Barnes & Noble has just arrived in his e-mail. He sends a text to Gansey’s mother, telling her that they’re just about to arrive at the hotel for the night. All the while, he’s as close to Ronan as friends are allowed to be.

Adam is testing the waters. He can’t help but feel sort of reckless, breathing in Ronan’s scent, wondering what it’d be like to wake up next to him. _Do I like this_? The place where Ronan’s jaw meets his skull looks razor sharp. An image of Adam running his fingers along that line crosses his mind; Adam isn’t sure whether it’s wanting or simply wondering.

It’s testing.

Adam doesn’t shrink back until they’re pulling into the parking lot of the motel.

“I’ll check us in,” Adam announces because he’s paying for it; he starts to open the door before the car’s even in park.

“And I’ll go with him!”

Gansey starts, “What for—?” but they’re already out the door.

“That was good, the leaning forward on his seat thing,” Blue comments, giving a little skip as they enter go through the sliding glass doors.

Adam rolls his eyes. “Look, Blue, I don’t even know if I…” But he trails off, not sure how to finish.

Her gaze is sympathetic. “I understand. Don’t do anything you’re not sure about, but also…” Adam gives the lady behind the desk his name, and Blue drops her voice, “He likes you. A lot.”

“A _lot_?”

Blue shrugs, leaning against the desk and looking back towards where the car is idling out front.

“I don’t want to do something wrong and then hurt his feelings.”

“What could you _possibly_ do wrong?”

The women tells them their room number and hands over the keys. Adam doesn’t have an answer for Blue, so he takes the cards and wordlessly returns to the car.

“Three-twenty-four, ‘round back,” Adam says, dropping into the car. Blue casts him an ambiguous gaze across the car.

Because, the truth is, Adam doesn’t know how to deal with someone like Ronan. Not like that. He could do absolutely _everything_ wrong. He doesn’t know how to _love_ someone like Ronan. Because Ronan isn’t stone cold the way people think, he’s not someone who takes things in his stride. Every emotion Ronan feels has the ability to tear him down—he’s less wildfire and more wildflower, an unexpected beauty that will be trampled with every misplaced step. He lets himself feel things, things that drive him to drinking, to street racing, to falling for people like Adam Parrish.

When he’s stepped on, he’ll grow back the way wildflowers do. But differently. Always differently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If people are somehow still reading this in six months, I should probably mention this was written before The Raven King's release, though this is presumably canon-verse, apart from the pynch-aint-got-they-shit-together thing. doin my best tho
> 
> shout out to John Finnemore/Cabin Pressure for the evil names game.
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [helengansey](http://helengansey.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

Noah disappears somewhere between the car and the third floor, though when they open the door to their room, he’s already spread across one of the beds, poking through the room service menu. “It looks pretty bleak,” he announces grimly.

“The hotel room?”

“The room service.”

“I hadn’t been expecting much in that department,” Gansey assures him. He drops his suitcase on the vacant bed and grins. “But isn’t this _cute_!”

“Someone remind me why we’re staying in a place that’s startlingly similar to Adam’s _attic_.” Ronan drops his stuff on top of Noah, who makes a sound of surprise, somehow having not expected that.

“It’s not a road trip if you stay in a nice hotel.” Gansey’s tone is hard to argue with.

Noah hums an agreement, shoving Ronan’s bags to the floor. “When are we going to the pool?”

“Right now!” Gansey says as though this had been a long-standing plan, and then he pulls his swimming trunks right out from the top of his bag. The others look baffled but offer no argument.

“Great,” Noah says, smile lighting up his face before he vanishes.

Gansey is pool-ready in two minutes, though everyone else had to dig their swimsuits out, and therefore took a bit longer (“You can’t tell me that you guys didn’t even think about the hotel pool!”).  And when they arrive at the pool at last, Noah is already lounged in an inner tube in the middle of the water, clad in black swim trunks and equally dark sunglasses.

“The sun went down ages ago,” Ronan informs him dryly.

Noah responds by pushing his glasses farther up the arch of his nose with his middle finger.

“I didn’t know you could change clothes,” Adam remarks.

“Easier not to, but.” He paddles over to the edge of the pool and looks up at them. “Well, what’re you waiting for?”

The first thing Ronan does after diving neatly into the pool is to upturn Noah’s tube with a punch from underwater. His yelp is hard to hear past the sound of Gansey and Blue jumping in together; Ronan doesn’t have to see them to have the suspicion that they were holding hands. Adam wades in carefully from the steps.

Ronan leaves Noah, favoring Adam, who is making no moves to go deeper into the pool. He gives a start when Ronan pokes his head up a foot or two away from him, having not noticed Ronan’s underwater approach.

“Aren’t you coming in, Parrish?”

“Well, not past where my feet can touch.”

“Can’t you _swim_?”

Adam just shrugs.

Ronan, who had been crouched so that the 3-foot deep water was still up to his shoulders, stands. “Oh, no way, Parrish, no way. Come on out, we won’t let you drown.”

“I’d really… rather not.”

Normally  Ronan would insist that that was stupid, that there was no reason not to, and Adam should get over it and stop being such a baby, but he stops himself. “Why not?” he makes himself ask, clasping his hands together in front of him.

Adam looks past him, towards Blue and Gansey and Noah, who are all splashing around, shouting, spitting water at each other, and absolutely not paying any attention at all to Adam and Ronan. “I’m perfectly fine in the shallow end. That’s all.”

Ronan sighs. “Your thing about not wanting to owe people things, surely that doesn’t include if we save your life if you start to drown?”

“Ronan…”

“I’m sorry.” He holds his hands up, taking a step backwards. “Just had to say it. We won’t fucking mind if we have to pull you out of the water, it’s really no chore.”

“Thanks.” Adam’s voice is neutral, but he smiles softly before dropping his gaze. He runs a hand over the water before splashing it up in Ronan’s face.

He gives a cough, flicking water back at him before turning around. “Hey, Noah, give Adam your tube!”

Adam makes a sound of protest and Noah frowns. “Why?”

“Just do it!”

A pause. “Oh, okay,” Noah says, as though someone had just told him the information that Adam can’t swim. Ronan supposes it’s quite possible that he just got the answer from one of their thoughts, but he doesn’t care to ask at this point. Noah pushes the inner tube their direction and then sinks underwater, only to pop up a moment later behind Gansey and grab him around the shoulders.

Ronan tosses the yellow tube to Adam. At first it looks like he won’t take it, but when Ronan starts to step backwards into the deep end, Adam follows, slipping inside the ring.

Noah tries to start a game of Marco Polo, but Gansey protests that Adam wouldn’t have an equal shot at winning, and then Adam protests _that_ , telling them to play without him, but then Noah lets it drop because it wouldn’t be fun if they all weren’t playing.

After that, Noah lets the game idea go. They discover that Noah becomes damn near invisible underwater, and he uses this to his great advantage to sneak around and splash everyone else. And when that grows tiresome, he floats up to the surface and spreads his arms, floating on his back far more easily than any living person could do.

“Bet I can swim to the other side faster than you,” Blue mumbles to Gansey. The two of them are on one edge of the pool, both with one hand on the cement, facing each other.

Gansey just grins widely, and they take off at the same time without another word.

Ronan makes a light noise and then, mimicking Blue’s tone exactly, “Bet I can swim to the other side faster than you, Parrish.”

He gets a scoff in return.

Noah pokes his head above the water and glances between the two of them before knocking the tube to make it spin.

“Where’d you even get a tube, Noah?” Ronan asks.

Blue shouts, “ _I win_!” And it sounds strangely distant among the loud splashing and laughter, and she sloshes over to sit on the steps. Gansey follows her, chest heaving in disbelief. He presses his lips to her forehead and falls down next to her, whispering something Ronan can’t hear.

He looks back to Noah.

“Ah…” Noah looks up to the sky thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Not here.”

“Ghost tube?” Adam says, knocking his knuckles against the plastic.

“No, it’s a real tube. I got it from… somewhere. Same place I got these from.” He looks down, and Ronan imagines he must be talking about the swim suit. “But this is actually mine. Or, looks like one I had. I don’t know. I don’t know how any of it works, really.”

“Fair enough.” Adam runs his fingers through the water. “Do you feel different on this ley line?”

He shrugs. “I feel different every day.”

A silence falls between them, and Adam looks over his shoulder at Gansey and Blue and then promptly turns back again.

“Is that weird for you?” Noah asks. Only his eyes are above the water, but his voice is still perfectly audible.

“Nah,” Adam breathes, flicking water at no particular target. “I mean… I feel stupid for thinking she would have liked me when there’s _him_ , but really… it’s fine.”

Blue’s voice cuts through the silence, “ _Rematch_!”

Ronan hates the way Adam suddenly won’t look at any of them. He knows it isn’t Blue’s fault, but he suddenly wants to accuse her of making him look so damn pitiful, shout that it’s her fault that he feels bad about himself. If Ronan were brave (and also a sop, an idiot, and a masochist) he would say, _I would pick you over Gansey any day_ , but even the fact that this thought comes into his mind is enough to make him want to punch himself in the face, so the words _definitely_ don’t stand a chance of leaving his mouth.

Gansey gets back first this time, but when Blue’s head snaps above the water, it comes with a loud, “You cheated! You can’t _grab my leg_!”

“I did no such thing!”

There’s no more racing as the night goes on, just conversation occasionally interrupted by a splash or shove or a kick of the tube when Adam says something cheeky. Blue’s the first one to get out of the water: She drags herself out, wraps a towel around her shoulders, and then comes to sit on the edge, feet in the water. “Splash me one more time and I’ll break your fingers off,” she warns as she runs the towel over her hair. Gansey drifts her direction and puts his hands dangerously close to her ankles, to which she continues, “ _Dick_ , pull me in, and I will cut off yours.”

Noah loses it; he gives her the biggest high-five he’s ever given anyone—Ronan didn’t think it was _that_ good a threat, but Noah’s excitement bemuses him all the same. Blue’s expression is smug as Gansey holds his hands up in surrender, backing off quite quickly.

Soon after that, though, Gansey is also getting out of the water, and then the two of them are suddenly, “Actually pretty tired, should go back to the room and get ready for bed. Gotta leave at nine tomorrow, early start, need some sleep…” and they’re leaving. Ronan sees Gansey throw his arm around Blue’s shoulders as they disappear out the pool gate.

“Well, _finally_ ,” Noah says loudly, once again floating onto his back, “They’re gone!”

“Now if only you’d leave!” Ronan cries.

A pout from Noah.

Adam sighs, “I was thinking of going in soon, too, but we should probably give them a second to… whatever.”

Ronan makes a sound of agreement.

“I should pop in on them,” Noah muses.

“Gross, man.” Ronan rolls his neck before pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the pool. “I spy with my little eye…” Ronan starts, and Noah lights up. “Something… green.”

Twenty minutes later, Adam is spinning in his tube, looking for something _pink_ Noah’s seen (Adam is pretty sure it doesn’t exist), when Noah makes an uncomfortable sort of noise. Adam and Ronan both turn to look at him. He puts a hand to his forehead, and then his other hand clutches at his white-blonde hair.

“You okay?” Adam asks.

“Time to go,” Noah says simply, already looking softer in the dull light from the pool. “You should get out of the water, Adam. I don’t know if…” He gestures to the tube.

Adam complies, not wanting to be dropped into the water by a disappearing ghost floaty. He climbs up the ladder, tossing it to the side and taking a spot on the cement next to Ronan.

“Well bye,” Ronan says blankly, kicking at the water from where he’s still sitting at the pool edge. Noah’s almost gone when he adds, “Finally!”

Noah smiles before disappearing completely, inner tube just a moment later.

Ronan and Adam sit quietly for a few passing seconds. It isn’t quite a comfortable silence; it feels strangely full, oddly heavy. Ronan wonders if Adam feels the weight, too.

“Parrish.”

“Mm?”

“You’re eighteen.”

“Yes?”

“You should _really_ know how to swim.”

“Eh.”

“Why did we plan a _beach trip_ when you can’t fucking _swim_?”

“Well, Gansey didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to ruin his plans.”

“Hm. Fact remains, you’re eighteen and can’t swim. Doesn’t every kid learn to swim? Your parents didn’t even take you to swimming lessons?”

“That’s a pretty classist idea you’re perpetrating, ‘every kid learns to swim.’ I don’t know what Blue would say about—”

“I will push you in the goddamn water right here and now and then _watch_ you drown.”

“Yikes.”

“Okay but what I’m saying is, you need to learn.”

Adam scoffs. “Yeah. Sure. And what, you’re gonna teach me?”

Ronan just looks at him.

“Oh, come _on_.”

“Don’t act like that’s a crazy idea!” Ronan cries, offended. “I could teach you.”

“Have you ever taught someone to swim before? Are you lifeguard certified?”

“Fuck no, but how hard could it be? You’ll figure it out pretty quick, all I gotta do is make sure you don’t sink.”

A smile touches Adam’s lips but he just sighs. “No thanks. But… really thank you. That’s nice. But… no thank you.”

“Your loss.”

Ronan watches silently as Adam gets to his feet and grabs a towel from the table. He dries himself off slowly, mind somewhere else. “Are you coming with or are you gonna stay out here all night?” Adam asks lightly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.”

 _God, why did you say any of that_? Ronan thinks, curling his fists as they make their way back to the room. _If he’d cared about knowing how to swim, he’d have said something earlier_. Ronan glares out the side of his eyes at the bright yellow walls as though they’d personally offended him. _Adam doesn’t ever want anyone’s help, much less_ yours, _damn_.

When they get back to the room, Blue and Gansey have the television on and the lights out; Blue is curled into Gansey’s side, eyes closed but probably not yet asleep, and Gansey is scrolling through something on his phone.

“Where’s Noah?” his voice is quiet, though not quite a whisper.

Ronan shrugs. “Bailed out when he realized how shitty he was at I Spy.”

Gansey raises his eyebrows.

“He just disappeared,” Adam amends. “Few minutes ago. Probably just got too tired.”

“Right, right.” His gaze falls back to his phone. His fingers are drawing circles on Blue’s shoulder, occasionally moving to tuck her hair behind her ear or trace lines down her back. He doesn’t seem to notice the way Adam stares—it’s less about the fact that it’s Gansey and Blue, which Adam truly was over by now, and more about the fact that… well, Adam could be doing that, too.

Ronan knocks him in the shoulder, breaking his concentration. “Quit standing in the middle of the walkway, shithead.”

Or maybe he couldn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan and Adam are sharing a bed, which makes both of them nervous for only slightly different reasons. Ronan lies still as a rock, afraid of encroaching on Adam’s space at all, afraid of being found out. _Oh God, it would be so easy to be found out_. He keeps his eyes focused on the ceiling—specifically, the light of the smoke alarm, which is threatening to personally keep him from ever falling asleep.

Adam has assumed a position on his side, turned away from Ronan, knees bent and arm tucked under his pillow. He’s more fidgety, unsure of what’s the best way of not bothering Ronan. Adam doesn’t usually have issues with sleeping, but he finds himself startlingly awake tonight, eyes wide, staring into the darkness towards Blue and Gansey. He’s completely certain they’re both asleep and equally certain that Ronan is not.

Is Gansey’s arm still around her?

What if Adam’s arm were—

Adam presses his fingers to his closed eyes, willing those thoughts away.

But what if Adam really did have his arm thrown over Ronan’s chest? What if his forehead were against Ronan’s shoulder, and what if—what if, instead of worrying about disturbing Ronan—he were trying to keep him up, whispering and—

Adam inhales long and slow. No, no, no.

What is Ronan doing? _God, he’s trying to go to sleep, that’s what he’s doing, calm the fuck down, Adam, shut up_. He wants to punch the mattress.

 _Go to sleep. Go to_ sleep. _Go… to… sleep_ …

He covers his eyes.

Ronan stirs on the other side of the bed. Adam is wide awake. Ronan throws his legs over the side of the bed and walks heavily to the bathroom. The door isn’t shut all the way, and Adam can see him throw water on his face and then cover his face with his hands.

Adam thinks he hears him murmur a curse, but he can’t make it out. He stands there for an indiscernible amount of time, hands gripping either side of the sink.

The light flickers back off; Ronan collapses into the bed.

“If I’d been asleep, I wouldn’t be now.”

Ronan doesn’t seem surprised to hear Adam’s voice. “Sorry.” Pause. “You weren’t, though.”

Adam can’t decipher the tone in Ronan’s voice, so he lets the conversation drop, unsure of why he’d opened his mouth to begin with. No, he hadn’t been asleep. He could have stayed quiet.

He lies still for a long time.

“Goodnight, Parrish.”

He’s pretty sure he says goodnight back, but he doesn’t really remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> luv y'all, i haven't written anything in ages, i'm glad to be back at it.


	3. Chapter 3

The second half of the journey goes much like the first, except Ronan drives the entire way; they make it to the beach house around five. Gansey, Blue, and Noah take up the task of going grocery shopping, while Ronan and Adam agree to stay back. Gansey says something about preparing the house for them, but it’s perfectly clean and the beds are even already made, so Ronan really isn’t sure what Gansey’s hoping for. Probably balloons or some shit.

The beach house is a bright yellow number, all paneling and decorated with a pristine white trim and deck. Windows are abundant, clad with curtains in pinks and blues and oranges. The kitchen is completely white, the only colors being the bright cabinet knobs and dish towels. The living room is yellow and white to match the exterior. Adam and Ronan look through every room of the expansive house and find five bedrooms, four bathrooms, some kind of bonus room on the entirety of the second floor (complete with wet bar and a closet full of board games), and at least two dozen linen closets. All of these rooms match the kitchen and living room. That is to say, white. Sometimes with beachy colors. Sometimes not.

“Looks like the guy who makes Gansey’s shirts designed this place,” Ronan mumbles as he peeks into the fifth bedroom. “And I call that… salmon-y room.”

“We shouldn’t call rooms until everyone’s here,” Adam points out.

“No, no, no, they _wanted_ to go grocery shopping, and _I_ want the salmon room.”

Adam gives a shrug. “Then I want the teal one.”

“Oh come on.”

“What?”

“Take the yellow one. You want that one.”

“No, I like teal.”

Ronan gives him a look. “Come _on_ , Parrish.” When Adam still seems confused, he continues, “Don’t you wanna see Gansey and Blue trying to share a twin bed, though?”

Adam rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they might fall out of his head. Adam hadn’t been thinking about bed-size at all. “ _No_ , that’s mean.” Two of the rooms have queen-sized beds, the other three have twins. Ronan’s salmon room has one of the queens. The other is in the yellow room.

“Such a waste,” Ronan sighs. He throws his bag into the salmon room. It’s really so, so salmon.

They settle in the living room, flicking through the television channel selection without giving it much thought. Neither of them care much for TV, but neither of them will say it, and it’s not like there’s much to do yet, anyway.

Except think way too much about the other.

Ronan is on one end of the white couch, a purple pillow tucked under his arm against his torso. The remote is loose in his hand, his expression as disinterested as his grip. Adam is sitting in the middle of the lengthy couch, at least two feet between him and Ronan. It feels like an awkwardly long distance, but it’s too late to move now. His feet are on the ottoman, heels tapping rapidly against it.

Ronan isn’t even looking at him, Adam thinks. He’s not even looking. It’s almost hurting Adam’s neck to keep it so still, to keep his face so glued towards the television. Holy _shit_ , this is a disaster, he can’t move. He won’t move.

 _Do I like him?_ Shit.

Adam is pretty sure they’ve been through every channel twice when Noah appears on the couch between them. Adam turns his head in an instant to look at Noah; Adam realizes it was creepy-fast, and simmers at the easy way Ronan pulls his gaze from the television, with no obvious interest in either him or Noah.

_There’s no way he likes me. It doesn’t matter._

“They’ll be here soon.”

“What’d you buy?” Adam asks.

“Oh, _loads_ of stuff.”

It is, indeed, _loads of stuff_. And it’s loads of stuff Adam and Ronan are left to put away. (“We readied the house for you!” Ronan protests. Gansey’s expression is neutral but promptly shuts Ronan up.) Adam loses track of how many grocery bags they haul into the house—in addition to the snacks they already had in the trunk.

“What the fuck did they buy this for?” Ronan demands, holding up a bag of baby carrots. “And this!” He dives into another bag, having spotted a bottle of ranch dressing.

Adam grins. He doesn’t like putting groceries away more than anyone else, but it gives them something to do. Less time to wallow in his thoughts. Adam Parrish is good at wallowing and over-analyzing, and he knows it.

“I for one will not be eating any kind of vegetable with or without ranch dressing,” he mumbles, throwing said items into the fridge. “And _where_ is the yogurt? What is Blue gonna eat?”

“You should have gone with them.”

“Like hell I should have.”

Neither Noah nor Gansey nor Blue show up in the time it takes them to put everything away, and when at last it’s done, Ronan plucks a package of Oreos out from where he saw Adam put it (along with four more packages) and then a jug of milk from the fridge where he put it. Ronan then sits himself on the counter, opening a cabinet beside him.

“What are you doing?”

“Now… I don’t think I’ve ever called you _stupid_ before, Parrish, but I can start now.” He hands Adam a blue mug of milk and then taps the white granite beside him.

Ronan is now pouring himself a glass of milk into a pink mug, eyebrow raised at Adam’s silence. His hands feel freezing against the blue ceramic of the mug, and he _knows_ he looks weird not saying anything, he knows he should hop up onto the counter next to his _friend_ —

“I’m not going to make you eat Oreos, so if you don’t want—”

“No, sorry. I do!” He takes his place next to Ronan and opens the cookie package, taking out three or six and then handing it to Ronan, who is now looking at Adam more curiously than Adam would like.

Adam drops his cookie into the milk and lets it float there.

“Is something wrong with you?”

“No?” Adam feigns an innocent look. “Just tired.”

“From all the sitting we’ve done in the car.” His tone isn’t quite accusatory, but it straddles the line.

“Still recovering from Blue’s driving yesterday.” Adam knows this will be enough to make him drop it.

Ronan’s laugh is sharp. “Fair enough.” But his smile is brief.

Adam then fishes the Oreo out and it’s perfectly mushy. He shoves the whole thing in his mouth to keep it from crumbling apart everywhere.

“Have some manners, damn. Is that how they teach it where you’re from?” Ronan, who takes the approach of dipping just half in at a time, takes a single, neat bite out of his cookie.

Adam says something that’s indiscernible through his full mouth. He swallows it half a second later and articulates, “Fuck you.” But he drops another Oreo into his glass with a faint grin. This could be easy, this sitting with Ronan. Not fighting, not worrying. It could.

Ronan knocks his heel against the cabinets. He’s paying a lot of attention to his Oreos.

It’s an easy silence that falls between them, and Adam almost regrets to interrupt it. “Did we realize how long a month is? That’s a long time. Do you know if Gansey has something planned?”

Ronan shrugs. “Not entirely.”

“Partially?”

“Partially,” Ronan agrees.

“What do you ‘partially’ know?”

The main _partially_ is Gansey’s request (demand?) that Ronan ask Adam out, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna do that right here right now. And the other partially… “I think he mentioned Truth or Dare.”

“Every night for thirty-one days?”

“That was probably the plan, yeah. Oh, and Never Have I Ever.”

“I didn’t realize Gansey was still fifteen.”

“Fun shit, though,” Ronan says, grinning. “And anyway, I already have a good one planned.”

Adam doesn’t have to wait in suspense for long. That night under the stars, lying in the sand dunes, tucked between the beachgrass, Gansey announces, “Let’s play Truth or Dare—no wait, we should do Never Have I Ever first. Then truth or dare each other accordingly.”

Ronan and Adam exchange a look; Ronan’s causes Adam to break into audible laughter.

“What!”

“Nothing, nothing, I’ll go first,” Adam says, recovering and sitting upright, legs crossed. He holds up all his hands, fingers spread wide. “Never have I ever been drunk.” He gets all of them. “Thank _you_.”

Gansey goes next. He’s still lying down; however, Blue, who had been tucked against his side, sits up and crosses her legs, propping her elbows on her knees—serious playing position. Gansey just has his nine fingers hoisted high in the air. Noah had built a sandcastle on his feet, though it shouldn’t have really been possible with the sand up here, but no one really questioned it: Ghost sand. So Noah sits astonishingly still to Blue’s right. Ronan is leaned back; not all the way down, not all the way up, propped on his elbow. His feet are close enough to Noah’s sand castle that he could knock it over, but he doesn’t seem bent on wreaking havoc tonight. His face is close enough to Adam’s that Adam could lean over and kiss it, though Adam is also not inclined towards havoc.

“Never have I ever…” Gansey’s voice is thoughtful, mentally flipping through the effectiveness of his assorted options. “Uh… God. Let’s see. Never have I ever done drugs.”

Ronan scoffs loudly. “Lame.” It only got Ronan and Noah.

“Not you, Jane?”

“What?”

“You live in a house full of psychics, yet you haven’t done any drugs?”

That gets him a smack in the shoulder.

Blue pulls the wealth card early on. “Never have I ever had more than ten-thousand dollars in my bank account.” Adam and Blue high-five across Gansey, who sighs dramatically.

Noah thinks for a long time, face scrunched up and fingers fidgety, only to go for the obvious with, “Never have I ever been alive for more than seventeen years.” This solicits a sort of murmur of annoyance and sympathy. (Gansey does clarify, however, “Does it count if I died in the middle?” Noah says it still does, and Gansey gives in gracefully.)

Ronan cracks his knuckles before saying, “Never have I ever kissed anyone.”

Adam exhales loudly, something between a scoff and an exclamation.

“ _What_?” This loudest reaction comes from Blue, whose voice nearly cracks with the volume of her exclamation. “I don’t even believe you!”

Ronan shrugs.

“I thought for _sure_ you were making out with Kavinsky, doing God knows what else, but you— _what_?”

Ronan makes a revolted noise at Kavinsky’s name.

Adam isn’t completely shocked, albeit rather surprised. In the back of his mind, he’d also assumed the same about Kavinsky, though he’d never actively thought about it. Better not to. At first he’s amused at the revelation, but then he realizes, with a panic, if he were to kiss Ronan, it would be his first kiss. Adam pushes the thought away hurriedly, though also files it under _reasons you could fuck up Ronan Lynch_.

He puts a finger down.

Ronan doesn’t miss the action. “Who’re you kissing, Parrish? Not Sargent.”

“Hey,” she protests.

Adam shrugs. “Noah.”

It takes a second. “ _Noah_?” Ronan looks to Noah, whose feet are now out of the sandcastle, though it still stands.

He grins and then sighs wistfully. “Yes, it was so long ago now.”

“Too long.”

“Stop, I’m blushing.”

Adam, who really is blushing, scoffs, and is glad for the darkness.

“You kissed _Noah_?” The disbelief in Ronan’s voice is almost louder than the words.

Gansey, having already known about this—and Ronan’s never having kissed anyone—is firstly amused at Ronan’s reaction, but secondly, worried. Could Ronan be _jealous_ of this? Also, how did Ronan not _know_? Then again, it’s not like they talk about this stuff all the time or anything, but still…

Adam looks vaguely mortified, glancing at Ronan only out of the corner of his eyes. He bites down on his lip in a way that must be painful. Gansey almost says something about it.

“Your disbelief is hurtful,” Noah says lightly.

“Fuck, sorry, I just…” Ronan breathes, laughing. “Fuck. Okay, well. Did I get everyone? Yes? Excellent.”

The game moves on, revealing nothing more interesting than that, until Ronan wins, having gotten Gansey out with _Never have I ever gotten an A in math_ , to which Gansey responded _Never!?_ before accepting defeat.

“Now we have good material to work with,” Gansey says, clapping and sitting up. “Truth or Dare. Who will—”

“Okay, well here’s the thing,” Blue cuts in. “I’m going to be asking all the questions, because I now need to know about everyone’s kissing history.” Gansey grins, happy that his plan of doing Never Have I Ever first has, indeed, resulted in direct lines of questioning. She points to Adam. “First kiss?”

“Noah.”

Points to Gansey. “First kiss?”

“…Noah.”

Ronan makes a choking noise. “ _What_? Sargent, don’t tell me—”

“Yeah, my first kiss was Noah, too.”

“Oh my _god_ , how long has Noah been the group hoe and no one told me?”

Blue breaks in, “Noah, who was your first kiss?”

He frowns. “I don’t want to say. Can I lie?”

“You can’t lie,” Blue says at the same time as Gansey says matter-of-factly, “We won’t know them. Well, unless it was one of us.”

“No, you _do_ know him.” He sighs miserably, more out of embarrassment than anything else. “Whelk.”

“ _No_.” Ronan cannot get over everything that has come out this evening. Shock and pity color his tone. “What the _fuck_.”

“Yikes,” Blue says simply, making a face.

“I know.” A smile crosses his face. “You guys made up for it, though. Now if only I could add Lynch to the collection…”

“No way.”

“You’re so mean to me tonight.”

“Lovers’ quarrels,” Blue sighs.

Ronan ignores the comment. “No way,” he repeats then pauses. “Aren’t your lips cold?”

“Come see—”

“ _No_.”

Noah sighs, “Yes, of course they’re cold, I’m all cold.”

“He’s still a good kisser, though,” Gansey offers.

“God.”

“Thank you, Gansey. I’m not sure, though.”

“Of course you are,” Adam says.

“Well, Blue cried after I kissed her.” His tone is undeniably wounded, but he has a smile playing on his lips.

“Hey! I was… I was afraid I would never be kissed again, that’s not fair.”

“ _Jane_!” The way Gansey’s voice sounds could only be described as _cooing_. He throws an arm around her waist, and pulls her close enough that he can press a kiss to her temple before Ronan can even make a noise of aversion. He whispers something that Ronan and Adam can’t  hear, but Noah apparently does, because he gives a knowing laugh. Then he sticks his tongue out at Ronan and Adam, who just nod in agreement.

Blue wants to ask more questions about kisses, the first being, _What was your worst_? But Adam’s only kissed Noah, Noah kissed the boy who murdered him, and Blue’s only kissed Noah and Gansey, and she literally killed Gansey the first time there, so that doesn’t do much in the way of conversation. But then she realizes, well, there isn’t even that much more to know in that department.

“I cannot _believe_ Noah was _everyone’s_ first kiss.”

“Not yours. Not ye—”

“No.”

“Who _do_ you want your first kiss to be, Ronan?”

“Piss off, Dick.”

They laugh, but for a second Adam can’t look at Ronan; Ronan doesn’t notice, though, because for a second, Ronan can’t look at Adam. Blue notices, however, and wants to slap the pair of them.

“Hey, listen, we need to get back to this game,” Gansey says eventually.

No one picks dare except Ronan, who only picks dare, but only before threatening that he will do absolutely nothing that involves kissing. There’s nothing to stop Noah from daring him to give everyone a hug, though.

And as it turns out, however, there weren’t many secrets in the group. Besides the kissing. Most of the things they learned were pretty trivial, mostly odd bits of knowledge that would never come up again. If Blue were to join the circus, her circus name would be Azul and she would be a trapeze artist. If Gansey had to be a mammal, he would be a dolphin (The original question had been _animal_ , but when the answer was _Raven_ , it felt too obvious, and Blue had to rephrase the question). If Noah could become famous for haunting anywhere in the world, he would choose the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Eventually, no one’s asking questions anymore, they’re all just taking turns telling truths about their lives. Sometimes they’re things someone or everyone already knows, sometimes not. Sometimes they laugh at the others’ confessions, and sometimes they drop into silence.

 

“When I was little, there was a stray cat that would come by, and Mom told me not to feed it, but I did, and I don’t know if she ever knew. I named him Timothy.” Blue has resumed her position from before, head on Gansey’s chest, knees bent and legs pressed to his. His fingers are drawing circles again, now on the back of her hand. “He was orange.”

 

“Declan taught me how to ride a bike.”  
“No way, Helen taught me how to ride mine!”

 

“When I was in elementary school, kids used to make fun of my paper bag lunches, and one time I got so mad about it, I punched a kid in the jaw, and when I got home my dad lectured me about violence.” Adam, lying with his hands behind his head, gives a weak laugh, though no one else does.

 

“When I was a little kid, I was horribly picky, and at family dinners, there was hardly anything I liked, so I usually just had some bread and chicken or something. And once my uncle just said something simple, like, ‘That’s all your gonna eat?’ Something harmless, but I started crying, and it was terrible, and I wouldn’t stop until Helen suggested we go eat on the porch alone, and she told me that it was okay to hate peas, because peas are nasty. Nasty was her exact word.”

 

“I thought I loved Whelk."

 

“In fourth grade, I didn’t speak for a week because my dad told me to shut up, and I thought it would really show him if I actually did, but I started talking again when I figured he wasn’t even noticing.”

 

“I had a crush on a girl named Millicent in fifth grade. Her mom was a senator, and I thought it would be really cool if we got married and both our moms were politicians.”

 

“For a little bit, I really hated my older sister, because when I was little, she would dress me up and make me play dolls and stuff with her, but then when my little sister started wanting to do that stuff, I would help her get the tea parties ready and dress up and collect the stuffed animals, and it made my older sister really mad because she thought I didn’t like her as much.” Noah makes a face. “I feel bad.”

 

“I used to be afraid to kiss my mom because I thought I’d kill her. She told me it wasn’t that kind of love, but it took me a long time to learn. I was scared for forever, though.”

 

Ronan pushes himself to a sitting position and, staring up to the inky, starry sky so he doesn’t have to look at his friends, says, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do when you guys go to college.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> three things
> 
> 1) the idea of noah being everyone's first kiss is from something i read on tumblr. i can't find the post for the life of me, i think it was even someone's tags on a post, which makes it harder, i'm so sorry. but Yes i can't take entire credit for that. but it's basically canon, i'm 100%
> 
> 2) tumblr!! i'm at [helengansey](http://helengansey.tumblr.com), feel free to come chat w/ me about these Losers
> 
> 3) i cant remember the third thing so i'll just say thank you again, thanks for reading


	4. Chapter 4

They’ve been at the beach house three full days. Ronan has made no progress on his task, he doesn’t know if he even wants to. What’s the fucking point? They’re all going to college. Ronan is staying in Henrietta. What’s the fucking point.

It’s 12:14am, early for a vacation, but Blue fell asleep during a movie Gansey had picked out, and when he carried her to the bedroom (The yellow one), he didn’t come back out. Adam had said something imprecise—it might have been that he was tired too—and disappeared to his room. Noah left as soon as he heard what Gansey wanted to watch.

So that left Ronan. Lying wide awake in his room. Wishing he had something to do.

Adam must know, he thinks. If Gansey knows, Adam must know as well.

Ronan doesn’t like that thought one bit. He’d been lying in bed, deluding himself into thinking he might fall asleep, but now he throws the covers to the side and grabs a shirt from his suitcase in the corner, where it lies open on the floor.

The house is dark, but the moon is bright, turning the white sofas grey and stretching the shadows long. The sliding-glass door squeaks when he opens it. The deck’s wooden steps creak as he makes his way for the shore.

Sand bunches in the ankles of his sweatpants; it’s too warm for them.

He stands, watching the water hit the coast, watching as it pulls itself back into the ocean, leaving some behind to seep into the sand. The sand doesn’t even notice.

Ronan sits down, leaving a few feet between his toes and the reach of the tide.

No one is outside to see him pushing sand into mountains, digging holes into the ground until the sand is too hard to go any farther. He collects shells in a pile, even the ugly ones. None of them are actually ugly, though, just a little plain. Not spectacular enough to be extracted from the sand until now, too much like the everyday world to be treasured elsewhere.

When the footsteps come, Ronan doesn’t turn around. He waits for them to sit, and when his eyes meet Adam’s, he breathes the smallest sigh of contentment.

Neither of them say anything for a heartbeat. Adam is assessing Ronan’s features for a mood, and Ronan searching Adam’s for a motive.

“Hey,” Adam says at last.

“Hey.”

“Can I sit here?”

Ronan looks over Adam, eyebrows raised. “It’s not _my_ beach.”

“Okay,” Adam breathes, eyes falling to where he’s dragging a finger through the sand.

“Did you… want something?”

“Yeah.”

“And that would be?”

Adam takes his time looking back up again. The sand rushes along the sides of his fingers as he pushes them to and fro, and a few times, he almost looks up but then doesn’t. And by the time he finally meets Ronan’s eyes again, Ronan finds that he had been holding his breath, waiting, waiting. Adam chews his lower lip. He almost drops his eyes again. Almost.

“Why won’t you come to college with us?”

Ronan laughs derisively. “That’s what you came out here for?”

“I mean it.”

“Well, first of all, it’s too late now. Second of all, fuck college.”

“That’s not a… that’s not a good second reason.”

“I don’t belong in a college, Parrish.”

“But you could major in something useless, like, like—like art.”

“An art major isn’t useless.”

Adam gives an exasperated sigh. “Yes, _I_ know that, I was hoping you wouldn’t think so.” Adam draws his knees up to his chest and then leans forward, lacing his fingers through the hair on the back of his head. “I’m sorry.” Ronan doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, it’s my decision. I need to stay with Matthew. And to reiterate: Fuck college.” Ronan raises his wrist to his mouth, leather bands running against his teeth. “If I feel shitty sometimes, whatever, it’s my fault. I’d feel shitty about something no matter where I was.”

“It’s just!” Adam’s voice cuts in over Ronan’s, only to break off abruptly without his permission. “You said you didn’t know what you’d do without us.”

“Yeah. Yeah I did.”

Adam looks pleadingly at him, asking for a reason, an answer to an unspoken question.

Ronan sighs. It’s a defeated sort of noise. “Listen. I already had this conversation with Gansey yesterday. You guys will visit, I’ll visit you guys, Noah will still be in Henrietta, we’ll send e-mails, postcards, ecards, love letters, edible arrangements, whatever. I’ve already had this conversation.”

“Okay.” Adam’s voice is small. “Okay. Let’s have a different conversation, then.”

“Nah.”

“What then?” Adam snaps.

Ronan doesn’t say anything.

“You’re making this hard.”

Ronan doesn’t ask what _this_ is.

Adam closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay. If you don’t wanna talk, that’s okay. I’ll go inside, then—”

“No.”

He’d already had his hand in the sand, about to push himself up; he stops. Adam looks at Ronan expectantly, waiting for him to speak first.

“What were you doing before you came out here?” It’s a boring question, and it rolls limply off Ronan’s lips, but his eyes are hopeful, interested beyond reason.

The smile that touches Adam’s lips is wary. Sympathetic. He settles back down, brushing the sand from his palm. “I wasn’t doing anything. Trying to sleep. I happened to look out the window and see you here.” A second of silence. “The teal room has a nice ocean view.”

“Of course it does.”

Adam isn’t looking at Ronan; his eyes are on the ocean, his lips are quirked upwards. His fingers are hooked together beneath his knees, which are still pulled up in front of him. His feet are buried in the sand.

“I haven’t seen you much this summer. Before this.” Ronan’s words are half mumbled.

“Yeah, I had to work a lot. And with the Glendower stuff all but finished…” Adam’s gaze is still forward, but it drops to his hands now. “I was working all the time. I’m sorry.”

“No, shit, don’t apologize. It’s fine. You do what you have to.” Ronan has all of the Atlantic Ocean before him, all the night sky above him, but he can’t take his eyes off Adam. “I was just wondering if it was gonna go back to that when we go back home.”

Adam swallows; Ronan can see it, the tightening in his throat. “No, I quit.”

“You _quit_?”

“Yeah. All of them. They’re all gone.” Ronan can’t decipher the tone in Adam’s voice at first, but he can see his fingers fidgeting, his feet pushing deeper into the sand. He hears his long exhale, and then Ronan knows it’s anxiety. When Ronan takes too long to come up with a response, Adam babbles on, “There’s less than a month until we have to leave for college once we get back, and I mean, I don’t have to pay anything for college except books, and I have plenty saved—even just from last month, hell, I was working, like, seventy hours a week, at least and—so I just said _Whatever_ , and I quit. And, I mean, I’ll get a work study job once I get to college, maybe a normal job, too, so I mean, I just thought… I thought I should. And it would have been rude to take a month off, they might as well just find someone else to replace me, and… Yeah. Yeah, I quit.”

God, what Ronan wouldn’t give to make him feel calm. He’s never felt so strongly about wanting to reach out and touch someone in a way that wouldn’t make them bleed. “I think that was a smart decision.” His voice is careful, and finally, _finally_ Adam looks over to him again, eyes wide. “And don’t get two jobs. You don’t need that. Work study is enough. Don’t… don’t fucking stress yourself out like that.”

“You _say_ that, Ronan, but—”

“I _do_ say that, yes, you deserve to slow down for once in your life.” It’s a nice thing to say, but it comes out in a manner as if Ronan were insulting him. “College itself will be enough work. You’re not allowed to get a _normal job_ too, and I’m gonna tell Gansey, he’ll make sure you don’t. Okay? Do you hear me, Parrish? Slow down.”

Adam groans, running his hands through his hair. His eyes close, his fingers tighten. “I’m afraid to get too comfortable.” He forces the words out of his mouth, and they sound it. They’re taut, strained. Angry.

Ronan reaches for something to say, but everything feels wrong. “Come on, Parrish…” This is so inadequate, not at all what he should be saying, God, what else, what else— “You’ve made it this far.” Ronan’s kind tone is strained from disuse. It’s not that he never says things nicely, it’s just that when he does, he doesn’t sound gentle the way Gansey or Blue does.

“Thanks,” Adam says after a beat. The word hangs inadequately in the air, but neither of them remark on it.

They’re quiet.

A breeze brushes along the shore, and Ronan stretches his arms above his head and lies back in the sand. He closes his eyes as though Adam isn’t there. He gives an airy hum. Adam takes in the soft curve of muscles through Ronan’s arms, the arc of his back. He notices again his jawline. A jolt of fear seizes his stomach. _Are his eyes still closed_? They are. But maybe they aren’t. His dark eyelashes are long. Adam remembers a game that used to be played in elementary school, _“Are my eyes open or shut?_ ” Sometimes they really did have their eyes closed, sometimes they were still peering out between their eyelashes.

It takes a moment for the fear to subside. Maybe it doesn’t matter if Ronan knows he’s staring. Why would it matter? Maybe Ronan is staring, too.

That’s the game the two of them play, after all.

 

* * *

 

 

Adam protests doing anything for his birthday. They’re at the beach, doing fun things every other day, there is absolutely no need, he’s happy enough just to be here. Gansey had waited until the day before to bring it up, even though he’d been planning on it from the beginning, because he knew how Adam would be. Gansey almost looks convinced to let it drop when Noah bursts in, saying that Adam can’t let the funfetti cake mix they bought go to waste, he’s making a cake whether Adam likes it or not, and he can shove it up his ass if he doesn’t wanna eat it. Adam nods dumbly in agreement. “Alright, then. Sure. Cake it is. Yeah.” Noah’s demeanor shifts in a second. He brushes the hair from Adam’s forehead, gives him a pat on the cheek, and then gives him a kiss on the opposite cheek. “I knew you’d understand.” Adam gives a weak cough of embarrassment, and Noah’s face lights up in a knowing grin.

On the morning of his birthday, Gansey, Blue, Ronan, and Noah are all up and about exceptionally early, which is to say, 9:30am. Gansey, still in his pajamas, his hair curled into odd angles, tells Ronan to go see if Adam’s awake. Ronan says there’s no way he’s awake at this God-forsaken hour (It’s really too early for vacation), but goes and looks anyway. The door isn’t locked, and he peeks through just enough to see a tuft of Adam’s hair sticking up beneath the blanket. The blanket rises and falls slowly with his breathing, and Ronan backs out, silently shutting the door once again.

Ronan reports to Gansey, who now has his hair somewhat under control, but is still in pajamas, that Adam is definitely asleep. Gansey responds to this by exclaiming, “Well don’t leave him there!”

Completely baffled, Ronan can hardly manage to get real words out. “What?”

“Go sit outside his room and make sure he doesn’t come out here!”

“…Why?”

“We need to decorate, it has to be a surprise.”

“So he’s gonna sit in his room all day on his birthday?”

“Not all day! It’ll just take a few hours. We might finish before he’s awake, but in case we don’t. You need to watch.”

“No fucking way am I sitting outside his door for possibly _hours_.”

Gansey sighs dramatically, though sounds of real frustration color his voice.

“Gansey, do not be ridiculous,” Blue says, drifting into the room. “We’ll hear him when he wakes up. He’ll have to walk down the hall and brush his teeth and take a shower and change his clothes.”

“Of course.” Relief floods his voice. “Of course, of course. I’m sorry, Ronan.” He puts a hand on Ronan’s shoulder. “You don’t have to sit outside his door.”

“Thanks,” Ronan returns dryly, removing Gansey’s hand from his shoulder with careful fingers. Ronan attributes Gansey’s stupid behavior to the early hour. And the fact that it’s Adam.

Blue bought the decorations. Balloons and streamers, all in gold and blue and red. She blows the balloons up herself, hanging them in bunches on either sides of the windows, draping streamers between them. She finds a ladder in the garage and uses it to hang balloons from the chandelier in the living room. She fans the streamers out from the chandelier, taping them to the walls opposite. It reminds Ronan of a big top circus.

Ronan has never had a birthday party that looks like this, and he wonders if Adam has either. He bets not.

Noah is wearing an apron. As it turns out, he had bought three boxes of funfetti cake mix, and he intended to use all of them today. When Blue walks in and sees the three boxes on the counter, she shouts, “Noah! We don’t need three cakes!” And she snatches one and puts it back in the pantry. “Two is enough. We’ll make cupcakes another day.” Noah sulks for a moment after his protests fail, but it doesn’t dog his mood for long.

He makes a lovely three-tiered cake and pipes the vanilla frosting on in flowers and swirls. Some of the flowers are red and blue and gold. When he has extra, he makes roses in Blue’s palm, which she then licks off with a grin.

Adam is in bed until 11:15, and when they hear the doors opening from the hallway, Gansey almost shouts, but then Ronan informs him that everything’s already done, and no one has to stop him from coming out. “Right,” Gansey says. “Right.” A few minutes later, once the shower’s running, and Noah is placing the cake at the center of the dining room table, Gansey continues, “It’s just that Adam never lets us do stuff like this. It has to be good.”

Adam’s and his conversation from two nights ago echoes in Ronan’s mind. _I’m afraid to get too comfortable_. Maybe this is Adam trying to be comfortable. He deserves to be comfortable.

 

* * *

 

 

They eat lunch out on the deck, Ronan having grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, because _What the fuck else do you eat at a beach birthday party_? He’d never done any kind of grilling before, but figured it couldn’t be too hard. It wasn’t.

Adam looked nervous when he first saw all the work that had gone into the living room, but after he got over it, he didn’t stop smiling. At least not when Ronan was looking at him.

Noah fit nineteen candles all on the top tier of the cake, arranged in the shape of a _19_. Adam blows them out in one try, and all of them eat more cake than lunch.

They play Monopoly, which Adam likes mostly because he kicks ass at it, not because he really thinks it’s that fun. Then Life and Clue and Scrabble. There’s a marathon of Hallmark movies on in the background. They play Monopoly again. Noah brings all of the bottles of soda out to the living room when they get tired of constantly having to walk between there and the kitchen to get more. They’re playing Rummy. Adam is lying on his back, feet on the sofa. He discards a King. Ronan grills more hot dogs for dinner. They eat inside off of gold paper plates.

It’s eleven o’clock. Blue, Noah, and Ronan are in the living room, loudly looking for a movie to watch. Gansey is sitting on the counter eating another piece of cake, and Adam is leaning against the sink, sipping at a glass of water. The kitchen is dark.

“Thanks, Gansey.”

He looks abruptly up from his plate. “Hm?”

“For this.”

“Everyone helped.”

“But it was your idea.” Adam had no idea of knowing this for sure, but it comes out as a statement rather than a question.

“Well. Thanks for letting me.”

Adam sighs. “It’s never that I don’t _want_ …”

“I know.” His voice comes out as just a little more than a whisper.

From the living room, Noah defiantly shoots down one of Ronan’s movie ideas.

“Gansey.”

“Yes, Adam?”

Adam’s eyes are concentrated on his glass, where he swirls the water around mindlessly. “Ronan…”

“Did he do something?” Gansey’s question comes too quickly.

Adam’s gaze snaps upwards. “No… he hasn’t done anything.” The change in Gansey’s expression is minute. Adam would die before he missed it, though. “Should he have?”

“No, no.” His tone is carefree, lacking the interest of a moment ago. “What about him, then?”

“Nothing.”

Gansey looks like he desperately wants Adam to keep talking, but he doesn’t. He’s not sure he ever had anything more to say.

“Why don’t we just let Adam pick?” Blue’s voice cuts over whatever Noah and Ronan had been saying, and Adam feels himself smile. He sets his cup in the sink.

“Let’s go help them,” Adam says lightly, stepping towards the living room.

Ronan is on his corner of the couch, remote in hand; Blue has claimed the L-bend of the couch, one arm hooked around the back, her legs stretched in front of her; Noah is sitting in the very middle of the sofa, feet on the ottoman, knees to his chest, shoulders deflated in a defeat that matches his expression.

“This is _too_ hard,” he moans.

Adam walks past Noah and takes his place between him and Ronan. Unlike that first day, Adam can count the inches between them. He holds his hand out for the remote, and Ronan gives it over without further word.

Adam takes opinions from everyone and eventually settles on something he’s seen a few times but is always good. And anyway, his attention is diverted by the boy sitting next to him.

Well, he thought it was. Adam spends the first fifteen minutes of the film wondering about what Ronan was thinking, noticing the flickers of movement out of the corner of his eye, but somewhere along the way, the activity of the day overwhelms him more than the movement of Ronan’s fingertips on the couch’s armrest, and he falls asleep. He wakes up to a dark living room, television off, clock on the wall announcing that the time is nearly two-thirty in the morning.

Adam makes a vague noise of confusion or discomfort or whatever you call the feeling you get when you wake up after not knowing you’ve fallen asleep. His arms are caught under a throw blanket and he struggles to pull them from underneath.

He gives a start, noticing Ronan to his right. He has one arm curled under his head, the other is wrapped around a pillow. Adam can only see the top of the pillow, because he too has a blanket draped over him, probably the work of Gansey. Adam has half a mind to get up and go to his room, but instead he stands, grabs a pillow from the other end of the couch and lies back down, head just a nudge away from Ronan’s leg. He draws his blanket close and falls back asleep in the time it takes for him to think that he wouldn’t mind being a lot closer than that.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to anyone who noticed my mistake in the last chapter before i fixed it:  
> i'm from florida, i promise i know my oceans omfg  
> i've been living in europe too long.

The next day, Blue ghosts up behind Adam. “How’s it going?”

Adam can’t tell if she’s asking how he’s doing or if she’s asking about the state of the Ronan situation. He opts for saying, “Good,” which isn’t a lie in either case. He taps his fingers on the white railing of the deck. Ronan and Noah are on the beach, and Ronan just threw Noah an extraordinary distance into the water.

“Y’all fell asleep on the couch together yesterday.”

“Not _together_ ,” he protests.

“That’s not what it looked like.”

“Come on, Blue.”

She sighs airily, smile on her lips. “Fine. Sure. Not together. But it was sweet.”

Adam’s silence is pensive. Blue leans against the rail to look him in the face.

“Do you know how you _seem_ about him yet?” He takes too long to answer. “Because you look like… Well, y’all are together a lot. And sometimes you look at him like…”

“Yeah. I’ve been trying to… feel it out.”

Blue laughs.

“What?”

“Just go for it, Adam.”

“That is… so much harder than you seem to think. Have you _seen_ Ronan?”

She laughs again but this time has nothing else to say.

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan has his eyes narrowed thoughtfully at the box in front of him. Gansey turns around, sees what Ronan is holding, and barks out a sharp, “ _Hey_.”

Ronan turns, “ _What_.”

“We came here for sparklers. _Maybe_ some bottle rockets, now put that down.”

With a roll of the eyes, Ronan complies. Gansey is holding three boxes of sparklers, which he promptly hands over to Ronan. He picks up aforementioned box of bottle rockets. “Do we need these?”

“Hand them over.”

Gansey makes a face but still does it. Gansey’s skin is hued red from the sunlight through the tent, whose sign out front declared, simply, FIREWORKS. There are rows and rows of plastic tables, all covered in things Gansey will not be responsible for if Ronan gets a hold of. They’re walking over to a guy who looks like he probably works here when Gansey says carefully, “Ronan.”

“Yeah.”

“How’s Adam?”

“Jesus.”

“I mean it.”

“He’s fine.” Ronan hands over their boxes of kiddie fireworks; Gansey is looking straight at him, even as he pays the man and takes the bag with their purchases from him. “Quit staring, I know I’m good-looking but shit, it’s weird.”

“Ronan Lynch, if I have to come over there and—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ronan opens the passenger-side door and sits down heavily. “Yeah, okay.”

Gansey appears in his seat after tossing their bag into the backseat. He thumps his palms against the steering wheel. He doesn’t start the car. “Yes?”

“I don’t want to.”

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

Ronan starts talking over him, “You guys are leaving in the fall.”

“That is not gonna change one single thing, and you know it.”

Ronan interrupts again, “Things don’t stay the same when people leave, Gansey, you’re not the same person when you don’t see someone every day.”

It’s Gansey’s turn to talk over Ronan. “They stay the same if you want them to stay the same. And who needs _the same_ , anyway? We’re not the same people now as we were before Glendower, our lives have different goals now, and that’s not bad.”

Ronan still doesn’t let Gansey finish. “Yeah, and you guys’ goals are college and jobs and leaving Henrietta forever, and that is _so far from me,_ that—”

He doesn’t hear the end of Ronan’s statement. Gansey’s voice is sharp but precise, clean in a way that Ronan lacks. “Henrietta is my home now and you know that. I’m gonna be back as soon as and whenever possible.”

Ronan shouts over Gansey, something inside him snapping. “ _Adam isn’t_.” He slams his hand onto the dashboard. “Adam wants to leave. Adam doesn’t wanna come back. Adam hates Henrietta, and there’s no way in hell he’s gonna wanna come back to visit every school holiday, like you seem to think.”

One of Gansey’s most remarkable qualities is his immunity to Ronan’s wrath. He takes a deep, cool breath. “Give him a reason to come back, Ronan.”

 

* * *

 

 

They eat hot dogs and hamburgers for lunch and dinner for the second day in a row, but no one seems to care or even realize. Noah sits at the table, pretending to drink out of an empty glass, waiting for someone to notice; it takes forever.

They’re eating dinner pretty late, having been held up by a particularly difficult game of Clue.  Blue (Ronan hasn’t seen her eat any yogurt since they got here) leans her head against Gansey’s shoulder when she finishes eating. Ronan glances to Adam, who is looking carefully at Gansey and Blue, and then he suddenly turns to Ronan. He seems surprised to see Ronan’s attention on him. He raises his eyebrows in question. Ronan just shakes his head.

“When are we gonna do the sparklers?” Noah whines like a child.

“Right now, scamp.” Ronan ruffles Noah’s hair as he stands.

The sun is low on the horizon, the sky just beginning to fade from blue to orange. The shadows are long and dark. Ronan grabs their sparklers and a lighter and hops down the stairs, Noah just behind him. The others follow after just a moment.

On the beach, Ronan marvels at the difference between this Fourth and the last. He recalls with shocking clarity the feelings of fear and ire as Blue and Gansey tore through hundreds of white Mitsubishis looking for his brother. The smartass look on Kavinsky’s face. He’d wanted to tear it off of him.

Handing Noah a sparkler seems significantly duller than this memory, though it’s surely ten-fold better. Noah looks more human behind the flickering of the sparkler; his edges are more defined, his eyes brighter. He looks alive.

“Try not to set your face on fire, Parrish.”

“I’ll try,” he says dryly, snatching the lighter from Ronan. Their fingers brush in a way that could be accidental but maybe isn’t. The sparks do different things to Adam than to Noah. Adam looks older; the shadows that are cast along his features are more than forgiving. His freckles look almost like more sparks.

Behind the house, the sky is slowly soaking into oranges and pinks. The sky beyond the water grows ever-darker.

“Aren’t you going to get one?” Blue asks, waving a sparkler dangerously close to his face.

“No, I have other plans for right now.”

Ronan makes his way towards the water and begins positioning bottle rockets in the damp sand. He lines them up close to each other; there must be fifteen in a row by the time he stands up straight again.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” Gansey sounds wary.

“What could go wrong with this?”

“You’re not fast enough and they take off right next to you and burn your feet off?”

Ronan scoffs. “They’re _bottle rockets_ , man. Five-year-olds set these off.”

Half-way down the line, Ronan doesn’t move his hand quick enough and he does catch a bit of the flame (Gansey hums thoughtfully as Ronan shakes his hand with a mumbled _Shit_ ), but he still has his feet in the end.

“That’s as exciting as it gets, folks.” Ronan sounds bored, but he’s setting up the second half already, his lips pulling upwards.

Noah has produced another lighter seemingly from nowhere.

Blue runs inside to retrieve a blanket.

Adam mumbles something that makes Gansey laugh.

Ronan sets off fifteen more bottle rockets from the shore and doesn’t even burn his fingertips this time. They shoot above their heads, and Adam follows their glow until it goes out. His eyes find their way back to Ronan, who is walking their way again.

“Well done, Lynch.”

“Thank you.” He inclines his head, hand on his heart. “Pyrotechnics are one of the many things I am good at.”

“I can’t even imagine what the other things are.”

“You don’t have a very vivid imagination.”

Adam almost holds in the next thought that enters his mind, but all too suddenly he remembers Blue’s _Just go for it_ , and he says, without considering, “That would be flirting if you’d ever kissed anyone before.”

Ronan is caught off-guard for quarter of a second then, “ _Ow_ , Jesus.” Ronan makes a face, feigning hurt. It’s a good cover-up for the surge of something very-similar-to-panic that shoots through him. He forces himself to look Adam in the eye, searching for humor or, or—something else. Adam smiles easily at him, blinks slowly, and then looks out to the ocean, leaving Ronan staring thoughtfully.

Past Ronan and Adam, Gansey looks incredulous and Noah looks giddy. But quickly Blue shows up with two blankets and spreads them over the sand, Noah drifts along the beach to try and find the sticks from the bottle rockets, and Ronan can almost ignore the comment and the knot it gave his stomach.

The sky over the water is black and blue, melting into the orange behind them. People are drifting onto the beach with chairs and towels and blankets and baskets. There’ll be better fireworks than Ronan’s bottle rockets once the sun is down.

Noah lies back on the blanket, and holds a sparkler above him. “We’ve still got thirty of these to get through.”

There’s one red and white checked blanket, one all white. Blue is sitting cross-legged on the red and white one, Gansey lying on his side next to her. Noah is lying to Blue’s left, halfway on both blankets, now with a sparkler in each hand.

Adam and Ronan take up residence on the white one, behind the others.

Blue sticks four or five sparklers into the sand in front of her and lights them up.

“Oh, so _that’s_ perfectly safe,” Ronan says.

Blue sticks her tongue out at Ronan and then takes a picture of her work on Gansey’s phone.

“She’s more responsible than you.”

“Now that is _just_ untrue.”

Blue then turns around and takes a picture of Noah, then Ronan and Adam. Ronan isn’t smiling, and Adam wasn’t expecting the picture. Noah is mostly a blur beneath the lights in his hands. Then she gets one of Gansey, and he looks perfectly normal. She sneaks a selfie of her, with Ronan in the background, still not smiling.

Noah physically puts sparklers into Ronan’s and Adam’s hands and then lights them for them. “No need to say thank you.” He winks.

“What the fuck are you supposed to do with these anyway?” Ronan holds his up to the sky, eyeing it, assessing.

“They’re nice,” Adam defends.

“Do you wanna duel?” Ronan swings his towards Adam, who jerks backwards.

“No thanks, I fight with you enough.”

“Not lately.” Ronan’s tone sounds hurt enough that maybe he wants to fight right there and then.

“No, not lately,” Adam concedes.

The sparklers die out, and then there’s Noah, handing them more. They take them without a word. Then Noah starts doing what Blue had done, lining them up in the sand and setting them off.

Noah lies back, eyes to the sky, knees bent, hands in the air, and says, “Never have I ever applied for college.”

“Stop playing the _I’m Dead_ Card,” Adam says, sighing.

“It’s a good card.”

 

* * *

 

 

“These fireworks better be fucking good,” Ronan says, surveying the beyond-crowded beach with a critical eye as the fireworks begin to go off.

They’ve got every kind of fireworks-watcher in their group of friends. Noah is the one who _ooh_ s and _ahh_ s and can’t take his eyes away; Adam is the one who watches silently but smiles to himself; Ronan is the one that, if you didn’t look in their eyes and see the reflections of the fireworks therein, you wouldn’t know they were anywhere near a fireworks show. And Blue and Gansey make up that one couple, the one who’s sitting just outside your line of vision, and they’re kind of watching the fireworks, but they also can’t stop looking at each other.

There’s a silence between explosions that Ronan comes to notice. Every few seconds, after one firework fizzles out and while the next is still rising into the sky, there is silence. It’s not that there’s no noise on the beach—there’s plenty of noise—but after the _boom_ of an explosion, everything else sounds muted. There’s a long string of explosions in the sky then… silence. A deafening silence that Ronan can’t shake. He wonders if anyone else hears it.

Adam has his knees to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, chin on his kneecaps. His fingers are hooked together, his eyes to the sky.

In the silence between explosions, Ronan leans over. “Hey, Parrish?” Ronan’s voice is as quiet as it’ll go.

Adam doesn’t hesitate a moment. “Yeah?” he whispers back, turning to look at Ronan, more curious than Ronan’s simple words warranted. His expression is soft. Expectant. Searching.

Ronan wants to sigh.

Instead he smirks. “Do they have fireworks like this where you’re from?”

Adam’s features twist from curious to exasperated; he gives a dry laugh. “Shut up, Lynch.” And he shoves him away.

Ronan’s words ring against the inside of Adam’s skull. _Hey, Parrish_? He’d sounded like he’d had a secret to tell, something he was embarrassed about, he’d sounded like he’d been about to—

God, it didn’t matter what it sounded like he’d been about to say.

Ronan _knew_ what it sounded like he was about to say. Adam knows it. Ronan must have known. That was part of the joke. That was part of the set-up. It was a good joke. He sure as hell pulled it off.

Adam taps his fingers against his legs, attention back on the night sky.

Ronan knows what everyone is thinking. That’s how he fucks with everyone so effectively. He knows what you’re expecting, what you’re wishing, what you’re fearing. And then he aims to kill.

But maybe this was something different.

_Hey, Parrish_?

I hear you, Lynch. The thought sounds loudly in his mind. _I hear you_.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, Parrish?”

He nearly jumps out of his skin. “ _Jesus_.”

Ronan smirks from where he’s leaning against a wall across the kitchen. Adam thought everyone else was in their rooms—he’d just come out to get a glass of water. Ronan had snuck up on his deaf side, and he knew it.

“You wanna do something fun?”

“At midnight?” Adam questions flatly. The fireworks ended more than an hour ago; he hadn’t really planned on doing anything else.

He scoffs. “Midnight. The night is still young. Do you wanna do something fun?”

“As in?”

“You’ll see.”

“I won’t if I don’t come with you.”

Ronan raises his eyebrows in an unimpressed manner. They both know Adam will go.

Ten minutes later, they’re getting into the convertible, Ronan behind the wheel. They’re both in t-shirts and swim trunks (When Ronan had told him to change into a swim suit, Adam had sighed. “If your plan is to throw me off the pier to my watery grave, this is my formal acknowledgement that I saw it coming.”).

The moon is bright, casting light even through the thin clouds overhead. Adam can’t remember the last time he’d seen a night so bright.

When they get to the main road along the beach, Ronan whispers, “Hey, Parrish?”

“ _Quit_ ,” Adam snaps, “saying my name like that, oh my god.”

Ronan laughs.

“Did you have something else to say?” Adam asks.

“Nah.”

They drive along the beach for just three or four minutes before Ronan is pulling off into another sandy parking lot. It’s all but empty, though a restaurant a few hundred yards away is still lit up and busy.

“You better be taking me out to dinner and not just bringing me to another, different-but-exactly-the-same-beach.”

“Better than that,” Ronan says as they get out of the car.

“Throwing me off the pier?”

“Unfortunately not.”

Ronan leads the way across the parking lot and then onto the boardwalk that leads to the beach. Trees shroud the walkway, and Ronan is dark as a shadow in front of him. When the boardwalk comes to an end, they’re on a different part of the beach, past the pier. It’s rocky here, with an outcropping of rocks that serves as a jetty.

“What’re we doing?” Adam’s question is slow.

Ronan just gestures them onwards. The jetty is spotted with tiny shacks of buildings and smaller wooden docks where small boats, canoes, kayaks, and jet skis are docked. A few people are milling about, seagulls are still flying here and there. Ronan walks like he knows where he’s going. He comes to a stop in front of a little black building where a sleepy twenty-something is sitting with his chin in his palm.

 “Hey,” Ronan starts. “I called earlier. Lynch.”

“You _called_ someone?” Adam asks, feigning surprise.

“Shut up, twat.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the guy says. He grabs something from under the counter and puts it in Ronan’s hand. “Dock to your right, numbers two and three. Be back by two.”

“Thanks, man.” He takes a step to leave but then steps back. “You guys got lifejackets?”

“Yeah. If you’re over eighteen, you don’t ne—”

“We’ll have one, thanks.”

Ronan throws the lifejacket to Adam, whose expression is a good mixture of miffed and thankful.

“What’re we doing, Lynch? What have you gotten?”

He holds up a pair of small keys with his best shark-like grin. Then he hops onto the tiny dock and walks to the end.

“No way,” Adam says immediately, taking in the sight of a line of jet skis bobbing in the water in front of Ronan.

“Yes way. Catch.” He poises his hand to toss a key to Adam.

“No, I’m right here, just hand it to me!” his exclamation comes out half-laughter. He reaches up and snatches the key from his fingers. “God.” He drops his gaze, running a hand through his hair, eyeing the jet ski and the key in his hand. _Ronan Lynch invited you—no one else, just you, yikes—to go jet skiing—of all things—at midnight—twelve in the morning. Jesus_. _Jesus, don’t fuck this up, Adam_.

“No fun.” Ronan clicks his tongue. “Okay, anyway, put on your lifejacket.”

“I’m not gonna fall off.”

“If you don’t wear that lifejacket and you do fall off, I am not gonna come rescue your ass, and contrary to popular belief, I’d rather it if you didn’t die, so you’re gonna wear the motherfucking lifejacket or so help me.”

But Adam had begun to put it on with a faint grin halfway through Ronan’s spiel.

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan tears out of the dock, shouting, “Catch me if you fucking can, Parrish.”

Adam exhales sharply, rolling his eyes.

Ronan drives like he’s been riding jet skis his entire life, but Adam takes a moment to figure out what to do. His palms are sweating against the handlebars and his throat is tight in a way that has nothing to do with the jet ski itself. Dozens of yards in front of him, Ronan whips around in a tight circle to face him.

“Well come on now!” Adam can see his grin from here. “We don’t have all night.”

Adam takes a deep breath and gives it some gas.

“There you go!” Ronan shouts as Adam accelerates towards him. “Come _on_!” Ronan takes off to Adam’s left, and Adam veers to follow.

Ronan is going full-speed ahead, hands easily gripping the handlebars like the entire vehicle is just an extension of his body. He cuts easily over the water, this way and that, then towards the horizon, and he looks over his shoulder at Adam.

“Ride it like you stole it, Parrish!” He turns sharply again.

Adam grits his teeth and follows the movement, though Ronan is ages in front of him and getting ever-farther. Adam repeatedly lets off the gas even though he keeps telling himself that he’ll never catch up to Ronan like that.

But maybe he doesn’t need to catch up to Ronan. Maybe this far back is alright. Under this moonlight, Ronan looks like a god, flying over the water, white teeth bared, dark skin ablaze. He finds Adam in a second, no matter how many times he turns himself around, those blue eyes always cast over the waves without doubt.

He can’t catch up. He can’t catch up to the way Ronan skims the water without a care in the world, the way Ronan takes the waves head-on.

Adam loops round and round, taking the jet ski as fast as he’ll risk, grinning even when Ronan whips past him, spraying water in his wake.

“Hey, Parrish!”

Adam turns.

“Come over here!” Ronan has come to a stop; he must be fifty yards away.

“Why?” he shouts back.

“Just come over here, you fucking grandmother tortoise.”

Adam does as he says, drawing closer to Ronan, who’s sitting back, hands at his sides, expression easy. He taps his foot against the side of the jet ski. Adam gives him a wide berth as he approaches, but pulls up to Ronan’s side with a questioning expression.

“We’re gonna race to that buoy on my count,” he doesn’t pause at all, “One, two, three, go.”

Adam shoots off, having expected as much.

“Ha, ha, _hey look at you_!” Ronan cries from behind him. Adam grins to himself.

Ronan swerves along behind him and catches a wave to his advantage, a wave that slows Adam down. Adam just sighs as Ronan cuts in front of him, laughing.

The wind is whipping at Ronan’s shirt, pulling it up and back down, yanking at the solid lines of his back, the harsh strokes of his tattoo blinking in and out of view. Ronan reaches the buoy and circles it, fist in the air.

“Come on, you knew you were gonna win,” Adam says, pulling up next to him with a weak laugh.

“Did not.”

“I think that’s a lie.”

“No, a shark could have come and swallowed me in one fell swoop, you definitely would have won in that instance.” His eyes catch a glint of the moon. “There’s no _knowing_ anything.” He says it like he’s not talking about getting eaten by a shark. His grip around the handles tightens.

“Sure.”

“Although… It’s pretty unlikely that a shark would be this close to shore, and seeing as that’s pretty much the only thing that would have stopped me—” He dodges a swat from Adam. “Rematch?”

Before Adam can say _Absolutely not_ , he’s off, leaving Adam to bob on the water staring over his shoulder after him. He’d been facing the opposite direction from Ronan; there was no following.

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan keeps his eyes on Adam the whole night. Partly because windswept is a good look on him, partly because he wants to make sure he’s still above water, and partly because Adam isn’t really trying to catch up with him, even when he teases him, even when he provokes him. This strikes Ronan mostly as interesting. Not bad. Not good. Interesting. Adam cuts his own path, vaguely following Ronan, but not trying to overtake him. He rides in easy curves, never copying Ronan’s break-neck turns.

It’s like he knows Ronan will always come back to him.

It’s a silly, sentimental thought, and he _knows_ it, and yet—every single time Ronan stops and turns around, this odd look washes over Adam’s face. One that breathes a simple, _Oh. There you are_.  It’s an expectant look.

No, not expectant. Acceptant, anticipatory.

He lets Ronan hurl back in his direction, only to pass him by once again.

Adam knows what he’s comfortable with. That may be granny speeds and easy turns, but he knows it, and he’s glad to do it. And somehow he’s always still in Ronan’s orbit. There. Following.  

Ronan looks over his shoulder and there he is. Gentle smile. Hands gripping the handlebars like his life depends on it. Shoulders braced. Ridiculous orange lifejacket. Right behind him. Far back, but right there.

_Oh. There he is_.

Came out to go jet skiing with you in the middle of the night, and there he fucking is—Adam Parrish.

They’re closing in on the jetty once again, and Adam slows to a stop, hand in his hair, eyes cast steadily on Ronan.

Ronan circles back around to meet him.


	6. Chapter 6

Ronan doesn’t know. Anything. Anything at all. And over the next couple days, this fact haunts him. Every time he closes his eyes, he realizes something else he doesn’t know. What is Adam’s favorite color? His favorite book? Does he _like_ to read? What did he want to be when he was little? Is Jupiter the fifth or sixth planet? When did Adam’s dad start to abuse him? What do you call those fucking trees that grow in the water? Is Adam allergic to anything? How does he tie his shoes? _Does Adam_ _like him_? Is it being friendly _or is it goddamn flirting_?

Ronan has never regretted his lack of romantic experience until now.

Who the fuck has his other eight?

“Do you have any… Queens?” Noah asks, looking hopefully at Blue.

“Go fish.”

“Gansey,” Ronan says severely. “Do you have any eights.”

Gansey sighs and tosses it over. “I was wondering when you’d ask again.”

“Fucking finally.” At least there’s one question he has sorted out. He lays down his four eights with a flourish.

Adam, leaned against the wall, has his legs crossed in front of him, and is peering over his cards at Ronan. “Lynch.”

“Yea.”

He raises his eyebrows, carefully assessing Ronan’s features as though trying to read his cards on his face. “Do you have any…” He glances back at his own cards. Back to Ronan. Back to his cards. “Threes.”

“Go fish, loser.”

Adam curses under his breath.

What kind of coffee does Adam drink? Does he drink coffee at all?

Gansey is staring listlessly at his cards. “I dunno. Adam. Twos?”

He hands over two twos.

Does Adam like animals? What do you call those dogs that look like goddamn mops?

Blue assesses the number of cards in everybody’s hands. Noah has the most by far. “Noah. Jacks?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He hands her two.

“Ooh good.” She lays down four Jacks.

Adam is rearranging the cards in his hands, lips pursed tightly together. His bangs fall into his eyes, and he pushes them back with a frown. He’s tapping his fingertips against his cards; he moves one card from the inside of his hand to the outside. He exhales silently through parted lips.

“Ronan, your turn,” Noah sighs.

Ronan snaps abruptly back to reality, tearing his eyes away from Adam, who looks up just in time to miss him staring.

“You went already?” he asks.

“Yes, pay attention.” Noah looks amused.

“My bad. Sargent: Nines?”

Does Adam know, does Adam know, does Adam know?

 

* * *

 

 

Ronan spends all day running through every single thing he doesn’t know, and by dinner time, he’s had enough of it. He is absolutely exhausted. His brain hasn’t spun in circles like this in—in forever. It’s never happened. He has never spent an entire day chipping away at his own self-confidence, tearing into the foundations of his knowledge, and generally making himself miserable. He has bouts of feeling shitty, of course, like everyone. He has bouts of self-doubt, of course, why else would he have taken this long to do anything about Adam? He has _bouts_ of wanting to make things worse just for the sake of making things worse. But it goes against who he is to sit around wallowing in self-pity.

_you don’t know_ **this** _you don’t know_ **this** _you don’t know_ **this**

His body feels too small for him. He flexes his fingers and squeezes his eyes shut.

_you are not good enough for him, anyway_

His heart is beating too quickly, he can’t keep his feet still.

He’s on edge, to say the least.

When Gansey recommends they go out to dinner, Ronan jumps at the opportunity for a change in scenery, even if that just means a trip to IHOP.

The booth feels stiflingly claustrophobic, even though it’s just him and Adam. Blue and Gansey are on their opposite side; Noah was sitting this one out. Ronan’s eyes are having trouble focusing on the menu in front of him. He has to stop, put it down, and press his fingertips to his eyelids.

Ronan is making himself sick.

_you’re doing this to yourself, idiot_

When he picks the menu up again, he can read it, but there’s a maddening thudding in his skull that won’t go away. It’s been there for hours. Maybe it’ll leave him alone once he’s slept. If he can sleep at all tonight.

Which sounds unlikely at this point.

Even once Ronan’s figured out what he wants to order, he keeps staring at the menu, gaze empty. Focus on what you do know. Focus on the things you know about him.

But what his mind needs is a break. Not more thinking.

God, he wishes he could stop thinking.

He closes the menu with feather-light grip. He props his elbows on the tabletop, presses his fingers to his temples, and closes his eyes. _you’re gonna make it through_

He is exhausted.

“Are you alright?” Adam asks, pulling him out of his thoughts.

“I’m fine.” He pulls his eyes open and almost cringes at the light.

Adam hums a thoughtful sound. “You don’t look it.”

“My head hurts.” He takes a sip of his drink, pointedly not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Do you need an ibuprofen?” Blue’s voice is soft. “I have some in m—”

“No, I’m fine.” The words come out harsher than he meant them to.

“Ronan…” Gansey’s voice is somewhere between questioning and warning.

He takes a deep breath. Fixes his tone. “I’m really fine. It’s fine. Everything’s good.”

Ronan keeps from lashing out as the night goes on. He doesn’t have it in him to speak much, though. No one presses the matter. He is _so tired._ Gansey is constantly giving him thoughtful glances—sometimes they’re more worried, sometimes they’re more encouraging. Ronan doesn’t have the patience for them, either way. He stares mostly at his food.

He notices Adam casting brief looks his way, as well. These he can take. They’re more careful than Gansey’s, more concerned. More nervous. Always out of the corners of his eyes, always for three or four seconds—longer than Gansey’s, whose feel more like bullets.

But maybe Ronan is just biased.

They’re mostly done eating when Ronan mumbles, “Can I get out?”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Adam says hastily, sliding out of the booth and letting Ronan up.

He gives a muttered thanks and heads for the bathroom, head ducked.

He pushes the bathroom door open as though it had personally insulted him and then goes to stand at the sink. He stares into the mirror, breathing heavily. Grounding himself. He has never felt so in-over-his-head about anything, and nothing’s even happened. He has pulled things out of his dreams and woken a hundred-years sleeping king, and this fucking crush is going to be the thing that does him in.

He grips the edge of the sink and drops his gaze.

What does Adam do when _he_ feels overwhelmed? _you know nothing_ Does Adam have any nervous habits that only come out when he gets nervous? Stressed? Anxious? _how can you pretend to care about this boy when you know nothing about him?_ Does Adam bite his nails?

No—no, there’s no way Adam bites his nails, they’re always neat.

 _That’s something you know_.

You know that.

A shuddering breath tears through him.

“Oh my god,” Ronan mumbles, rubbing his eyes. “Oh my _god_.” He drops his elbows to the cold sink countertop, resting his forehead in his palms. He wants to go to bed. He takes a deep breath. He counts to twenty. His mom used to tell him to do that when he was mad. Turns out it works with anxiety, too.

The pounding in his head subsides. Not completely. But bearably.

He finds his friends trying really, _really_ hard to look casual.

Ronan breathes a laugh.

His mood is lifted only minutely, but the miniscule shift in temper is enough to get the rest of them to stop looking at him like he’s ill. He is silently thankful.

He keeps himself under control while they’re in the restaurant and while they’re on the way back home, but once they’re back inside the beach house, he excuses himself to his room. They let him go without question.

It’s one of those rare nights where he falls asleep without issue, despite his earlier fears. It can’t be more than 8:30pm when he crawls into bed, but sleep comes as though it had been waiting for him.

He dreams. It’s a normal dream. There’s nothing for him to take here.

He doesn’t remember the dream when he wakes—with a jerk, his heart beating too quickly in his chest and a different pain than earlier echoing in his skull—but he thinks that’s probably alright. He looks at his phone for the time. He reads the clock (11:01) and a text from Matthew (9 minutes ago), C _an I call you? (:_

Ronan groans at the time, because of course he falls asleep easily but then can’t stay asleep. Ronan sighs at the text, because of course Matthew wants to call him at this hour. He’s ridiculous.

Ronan is still tired, but not like before.

He dials Matthew.

He pulls himself to his feet as the phone rings. Once, twice, then, “Ronan!”

“Hey, kid. What’s up?”

“Tell me about your vacation!”

Ronan paces around his room in long, slow strides, telling his brother everything he wants to know. His bones feel too heavy, but his brother… Well. Matthew is entirely too energetic for eleven at night, but it’s comforting. Matthew’s excitement is something he knows well. After a few minutes, Ronan wanders to the living room, which he finds empty. Ronan tells Matthew about Never Have I Ever, Adam’s birthday, the fireworks, the jet skis. Matthew asks for more details after everything. Ronan pretends to be exasperated.

Matthew asks for descriptions of the weather, the house, the beach.

Ronan gives them to him, settling down with a seat on the kitchen counter. After he finishes telling him about what the furniture looks like, Ronan asks, “Okay, but fuck the beach house décor, why’re you so interested? What’s happening your side?”

“I just wanna hear about what it’s like there, that’s all. There is _lots_ of stuff happening by me, trust me. Last night, this guy Brent from Aglionby was having this party. I said I wasn’t really interested, but then _Eric_ said…” Matthew launches right into a full description of everything that’s happened in the week or so that Ronan has been away. And it certainly is _lots of stuff_. Matthew has the sort of social life that seems impossible to Ronan.

Ronan doesn’t interrupt as Matthew speaks. He occasionally offers a murmur of agreement or disgust as warranted, but Matthew doesn’t need much prodding. Ronan doesn’t need to ask for details the way Matthew does, because Matthew tells you everything as he goes. All Ronan has to do is listen.

Matthew is in the middle of talking about the Fourth of July when Ronan hears a door open from the hallway. He can’t see into the living room from where he is in the kitchen, but he listens carefully for footfalls. He hears whoever it is walk through the living room and then he hears the sliding glass door open. Then shut.

Ronan gives a nonchalant, “Uh huh,” to Matthew and then slides off the counter.

He peers out the window and sees Adam, making his way towards the beach.

Ronan walks back towards the kitchen, though he doesn’t sit down again.

Five minutes later, Matthew has moved on from Fourth of July and is now telling him about a girl he met at Eric’s or Brent’s or Josh’s or Tyler’s or whoever’s party. Ronan is suddenly having trouble concentrating again. He paces back to the window. The ocean is calm tonight. Adam is standing in the water, skipping rocks. Ronan smiles lightly to no one—and then hates himself for it. After a second, Adam runs out of rocks and starts searching around for more. He’s wearing jeans, which he’s rolled up, but the legs look entirely wet anyway. He trudges along the shore and into the water. He then walks all the way to the point where it’s past his knees. Adam stands, water apparently unnoticed, and skips his rocks into the sea.

Ronan shuffles back into the kitchen.

Somewhere over the next fifteen minutes, Matthew finishes talking about all the stuff he’s been getting into and wraps it up with, “Mom wanted me to tell you she’s thinking about you, she hopes you’re having a good time, and she loves you. And I love you as well. I ditto everything Mom said.”

Ronan laughs. “Yeah, okay. Love you guys, too.” Ronan fiddles with a loose string on his t-shirt. “Have you… seen Declan?”

“No, not since you left.”

“Okay.” His tone is light, unsure. “Okay, well. It was nice hearing from you.”

“Same! I’m glad you called me!”

“I just did it ‘cause you asked,” Ronan defends.

“I know. Thanks. I’ll call you again next week.”

Ronan makes a noise. “Give it two weeks.”

“Fine, okay, I’ll call you week after next.”

“Sounds good.”

“Bye, Ronan!”

“Bye, Matthew.”

Ronan stands for a moment, phone in his hand, leaning against the counter. He still feels a lot of the unease from earlier, and though he wants to go talk to Adam, he isn’t sure he has it in him tonight. He doesn’t know how long he stands there. It can’t be more than ten minutes, but maybe it’s only two.

He’s going to go back to bed.

As he walks past the glass door, however, he looks out and then stops. Adam isn’t there anymore. Ronan is completely sure he didn’t see or hear Adam come back inside, though. Ronan walks hesitantly towards Adam’s room and knocks one knuckle against the door. When he doesn’t get an answer, he opens it slowly and finds the room empty. He takes a step backwards, closing the door. A different feeling knots his stomach.

He walks quickly out to the porch and doesn’t find him there.

“Parrish?” he calls, rushing down the stairs and into the sand. He scans the beach; there’s no one as far as he can see. “ _Parrish_? Are you out here?” Ronan jogs all the way down to the shore, where the water is hitting the coast, and turns around. Maybe he’s around the sand dunes, maybe if Ronan goes farther down and turns around he’ll see him—

There’s nothing, there’s no one on this beach.

He turns on heel and looks out over the water.

The beach is empty. The water is empty.

He feels the exhaustion from earlier creeping up.

He runs back up to the house and circles the perimeter. “Adam?” He struggles to keep his voice neutral. _Do not panic, he is here somewhere_. _Where would he have gone_? _He’s here, he has to be here._

Ronan dashes back to the deck and surveys the beach one more time.

_he was just here, he was just here, he was just here_

“God, what a _shitty_ day,” Ronan hisses, slamming a hand against one of the chairs on the deck. He claps his hands over his mouth, trying to keep them from shaking. Then he punches a fist into the wall. Anger keeps the worry at bay.

He turns around sharply and tears the glass door open. He doesn’t close it behind him.

“Adam, are you in here?” he calls as loudly as he dares; he doesn’t want to wake Gansey and Blue up. The silence of the house is his only response.

He checks in every room of the house, heart racing faster at every door that leads to an empty room. The last place he checks is the garage, where the car is still sitting in the dark, just how they left it.

Ronan closes his eyes. _He’s fine_. He repeats these words over and over to himself, but they don’t keep Ronan from tearing between rooms he’s already checked and scanning the empty beach to no avail. His hands are clenched into fists, and his palms are sweating in a way that only makes him angrier.

_you can’t even find him when he’s run off, you don’t even know where he is_

People don’t just disappear, something’s _happened_ to him, something has happened, and it could be anything, God, some psycho killer on the beach, or, or, or he wandered out too far and got caught in a riptide and didn’t know what to do, and now he’s _dead_ , he could be fucking dead at the bottom of the ocean, and they would never find his body that way, they would always be left wondering, _God_ , and Ronan had been there the whole time, if he’d just looked out the window, he could have stopped it, but he didn’t. He didn’t.

Ronan slams the sliding glass door behind him when he comes back inside. He leans his head back against the door, pressing his palms against the cool glass.

he’s probably not dead, he’s probably not dead, he's probably dead

But oh God, wouldn’t that be the way to end this day, Adam dead at the bottom of the ocean, that is _exactly_ what would happen today.

Ronan can feel the thoughts whirring through his brain, grinding together like cogs, ringing like fingernails on a chalkboard, and Ronan cannot stop it. He raps his knuckles against the glass and then pushes himself off.

His whole body is protesting. He can’t feel his knees.

Ronan makes for the front door. He throws it open, and his feet sound loudly against the cement stoop. The door slams shut behind him with a _bang_.

“Goddamn it, Adam,” he mutters.

Ronan flies down the walkway, intending to circle the stupid house again, even though, why the _fuck_ would he be hanging out there, but he’s all out of places to look, and if he wants to keep from losing his head completely, he better look somewhere. He rounds the corner and—

Walks straight into Adam fucking Parrish.

“You absolute shithead,” he breathes, taking a step backwards, heart pounding against his ribs, one hand covering half his face. “You absolute son of a bitch, I will—holy shit, I want to throw you into the ocean myself.” Ronan’s words come out in one long, whispered string.

Adam, affronted, struggles for something to say. “Did I—did I do something?”

Ronan leans back against the corner of the house and slides to the ground. “Don’t talk,” Ronan mutters, pressing his hands to his eyes. “Give me a second.” The world is tilted at an odd angle.

Adam shifts his weight from one foot to the other. He bites his lip, taking in Ronan’s state. Then he slowly sits down in front of Ronan, crossing his legs, hands on his knees. He waits patiently.

“I thought—” Ronan begins after a moment, once the world has righted itself. “I thought you were fucking _dead_ at the bottom of the ocean, Parrish, what the _fuck_ , where have you been?”

Adam opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out. Ronan’s eyes are narrowed at him, furious, his fingers shaking, his teeth clenched. “I was just walking down the street, I didn’t  mean—”

“Oh my _god_.” Adam can’t tell if his tone carries yet more anger or rather something more like relief. Ronan stands in one quick movement, though his shoulders are still stooped, and heads back towards the front door.

“Hey!” Adam scrambles up to follow.

Adam doesn’t catch up to him until they’re in the living room once again, and Adam grabs him around the forearm.

Ronan twists on him like a snake. “Don’t you _ever_ do that again!”

“Do _what_?”

“Leaving the house in the middle of the night, not telling anyone where you’re going?”

“I didn’t think anyone was awake!” Adam had been almost amused at Ronan’s behavior at first, but now it’s making his blood feel too hot beneath his skin.

“Well I _was_! I saw you go out onto the beach, I saw you standing in the water, I looked away for fifteen minutes, look back, you’re _nowhere_!” He’s yelling now, he doesn’t even know when he started. “I thought you’d waded in too far, got stuck in a riptide or some shit! Do you know how to get out of a riptide?” The question is an accusation.

Adam feels very small. “No.”

“You would have drowned, you would be at the bottom of the ocean, and I—” Ronan sucks in a sharp breath. His voice quiets. “Goddamn.” He knocks his fist against the back of the couch. “Goddamn,” he repeats, louder. “Don’t you ever fucking leave this house in the middle of the night without leaving a note or something, god _damn_.”

A few things happen at once. Ronan raises his hand to punctuate his sentence, arm flying high, fingers spread. Adam jerks his head to the side, eyes squeezing shut. Ronan starts to open his mouth in question, pulled away from his anger by the odd gesture. Then he freezes.

Ronan takes a step backwards, dropping his hand as slowly as possible.

Adam’s eyes are still shut, though he gives a shaky breath, realizing too late what he’s done. His shoulders sag out of embarrassment. It takes him a minute before he forces his eyes open again.

“I wasn’t gonna hit you.”

“I know.”

They stand there for a moment, not looking at each other. The silence is too much: The pounding from earlier is pulling at the edges of Ronan’s consciousness.

“I should leave,” Ronan mumbles. He takes a shuffled footstep in the direction of their rooms.

“Stop.” Adam holds up his hand. “I’m thinking.” His eyes are still on the floor.

Ronan stops.

Ronan and Adam are always fighting. It’s part of their relationship. Sometimes it happens more frequently than other times, sometimes it’s about something serious, sometimes it’s about something stupid, but it’s always there. They’d made it an exceptionally long time between fights this time, yet here they were again. It’s the cycle. Neither of them seem to mind. But this is different. Something has to change. The thing is, there’s always something missing from the end of their fights, something other people take for granted.

Something important.

Adam’s voice is shaky but determined. “I’m sorry I made you worry.”

 _Sorry_. It’s always implied, never spoken. They didn’t need it.

But if Adam is going to try something with Ronan, well. Something needed to change.

“I’m sorry I made you think I was going to hit you.”

At last, Adam meets Ronan’s gaze again, and it’s a careful gesture. Strangely hopeful. Ronan looks stricken, eyes searching, lips slightly parted. Adam sighs slowly, features relaxing. Ronan’s expression shifts in an almost unnoticeable but still significant way.

Adam’s eyes drop once again, this time to Ronan’s hands, which are hanging motionless at his sides. Adam cocks his head to the side and carefully—oh, so carefully—reaches forward and catches Ronan’s fingers between his own. He doesn’t pull them into his, doesn’t lace them together, no—he just holds them between four fingers and thumb. Adam gives the smallest squeeze and then lets them drop. He doesn’t meet Ronan’s eyes again.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Adam whispers. And then he heads for his room, leaving Ronan staring after him.


	7. Chapter 7

“I heard you weren’t feeling well yesterday night.”

Ronan, still in bed though he is, doesn’t seem fazed by Noah’s abrupt, unexpected appearance at the center his room. He gives a noncommittal noise and rolls over, pulling his blanket closer. Noah is unbothered and continues on.

“And then I heard from Adam that something happened later.”

“When you say _heard_ ,” Ronan asks dimly, “do you mean actually heard with your ears?”

“No. Doesn’t matter, though. What happened?”

Ronan rubs his eyes and resists a sigh as the events from the previous night flicker through his memory. Ronan gives a halfhearted recount of calling Matthew, seeing Adam on the beach, and then not seeing him on the beach. He almost leaves out the part about Adam flinching, but adds it on a second-thought. “And then he, like… touched my hand. And just. Left. He touched my hand and left.” The action had been confusing at the time, but now, hearing it spoken aloud, it makes Ronan’s head spin even more.

“You guys touch hands all the time.”

“Not like that—wait, what do you mean?”

Noah _tsk_ s. “You think you’re being sneaky, handing each other things and touching. You know,” he says, looking at his own hands with a casual, bemused expression.

“Whatever, no, like.” Ronan sits half-way up, propping himself up on his elbow and beckoning Noah forward with his other hand. “Give me your hand.”

Noah steps closer and does as he’s told.

“He fucking—he did this.” Ronan repeats the gesture just as Adam had done it.

“That’s sensual,” Noah says approvingly.

“I know!” Ronan collapses back to his pillow, staring at the ceiling. “I mean. I don’t know. We’d been fighting.”

“Ronan. Stop talking yourself out of good things.”

Ronan gives him the wariest look he can muster, all raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

“You can trust yourself,” Noah says, scuffing his foot against the floor. “It’s okay.” He looks encouragingly at Ronan, who just gives an evasive noise. “However, for now,” Noah says, tone shifting, patting Ronan on the hand. “I’m making pancakes in half an hour, and I expect to see you there.” He flashes a grin, and then he’s gone.

Ronan lies in his bed, memorizing the ceiling. It isn’t dread that he feels when he thinks about seeing Adam but it’s something similar. Uncertainty. An uncertainty of what’s _happened_. If anything’s happened. He holds his hand in the air, scrutinizing the spaces between his fingers. Probably nothing’s happened. Maybe he’ll ask. Probably he won’t.

He drops his hand, sighs, and then gets up.

When Ronan trudges his way to the kitchen, he finds Noah busily working away at the stove, and Gansey, Blue, and Adam are all seated around the dining room table. Adam looks up at him when he walks in. He gives Ronan a meager smile.

“You’re late,” Noah says without looking up.

“My bad,” he returns flatly, his eyes still stuck on Adam. Adam holds his gaze until Ronan looks away towards Noah. “You got enough pancakes there, man?”

Noah does, indeed, have a respectable tower of pancakes building up on a plate beside him. But he just sticks his tongue out at Ronan. “I don’t remember how much you living people eat. And anyway, I’m almost out of batter, so…”

“Sure, sure,” Ronan mumbles. He turns carefully back towards the others and takes a seat across from Adam.

Adam has his chin resting in his palm. Ronan openly stares at him questioningly. Adam raises his eyebrows, returning the question. Ronan narrows his eyes: _I asked you first_. Adam makes a face, lips thin with the smallest shrug. Ronan gives a thoughtful look and then glances away once again. Gansey and Blue are talking quietly to each other, _seemingly_ not noticing the exchange between Adam and Ronan.

Noah drops two plates of pancakes onto the table, each containing a tower that is… There’s a lot of pancakes. And upon further inspection, none of them are circular. Most of them seem to be hearts and clouds (flowers?) though Adam gets one in the shape of a star.

“How on earth did you…” Ronan trails off.

“Carefully.” He pulls up a seat next to Adam. “Bon appétit."

There’s a scuffle for the maple syrup bottle, though Gansey comes out with it and then simply hands it to Blue, who returns Ronan’s disbelieving, vaguely sickened look with a saccharine smile.

“So,” Gansey starts, “what should we do today?”

“I hear there’s a cute downtown here,” Blue says before handing the bottle back to Gansey with a quiet, “Thank you.”

“Where did you _hear_ that?” Ronan asks.

She narrows her eyes to match Ronan’s expression, and she stares him down before annunciating, “TripAdvisor.”

“Ooh, no, that’s good, we should go into town,” Noah agrees, leaning forward against the table.

Gansey takes a bite of his pancakes. “Adam. Ronan?”

“Sure, whatever, why not.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They’re eating pancakes for what seems like hours, but no one is complaining. Neither Ronan nor Adam bring up the events from last night out of some silent agreement. Ronan casts Adam more inquisitive looks than he can count, and every time, Adam just gives a vague _I dunno_ look back. It begins to irritate him, though rather than dwelling on it, he forces himself to take a step back. It’s almost funny. Almost.

They are a _mess_.

As promised, downtown is rather cute. Old-fashioned stores in creamy colors all lined up and down one central avenue, palm trees planted along the center of the median, people meandering about, chatting with each other. There’s two or three old-fashioned ice cream stores for every day of the week. Mostly the avenue is populated with tourist-y shops, but there are toy stores and jewelry boutiques and real estate agents’ offices as well, just like anywhere else on the planet.

Blue, dragging Gansey along by the hand, leads them into a shell store first thing.

It’s an eccentric little shop, walls lined with wooden shelves, divided up to hold different kinds of shells. There are identical aisles down the center of the shop, and jaws full of sharks’ teeth and hunks of coral hanging from the ceiling. It smells of salt and old carpet.

“Aren’t there free shells on the beach?” Ronan asks dryly.

“You’ll never actually find pretty ones like these,” Blue says, holding two bright purple ones up to her eyes with a grin. She brings them back down to look at them fondly.

Adam drifts to the right, heading down a center aisle. Ronan hesitates before following him—he kind of doesn’t want to be alone with Adam, but he kind of thinks he should be. Though he also kind of doesn’t trust himself to actually… ask anything.  

Adam is turning a starfish over in his hand when Ronan steps up, hands shoved in his pockets. “They have to kill the starfish to make them like this.”

“Do they?” He doesn’t sound terribly interested.

“Mhmm. Kind of sad.” Adam puts it back down.

“Yeah, okay, listen, about last night—” He stops, holding his breath.

“Yes?”

“Don’t you… don’t you know what I’m gonna say?”

Adam looks bemused. “No, not really.”

“I… I mean…” Ronan’s facial features tighten; he frowns. Is he trying to be difficult? There’s no way he’s actually confused. Right? Maybe Ronan hasn’t been clear?

 _well that’s for damn sure_ , he thinks to himself.

" _Parrish_." He doesn’t know how to be clearer.

Adam is straight-up smiling now. He quirks his eyebrows. “Yeah? That’s me.”

“C’mon, man…”

He gets only an animated shrug in response, and Adam takes an exaggerated step away from Ronan. “Can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You’re a little shit.” His words are venomous, but Adam seems impervious.

Adam is thumbing through some conch shells. He looks up to smile at Ronan and then looks back down. “Do you like this?” he holds one up. “It could go in Gansey’s and my dorm room. Would it look good on a windowsill?”

“Nah, get something else.”

“You think so?” He examines the conch. Then shrugs. “Okay. What do you suggest?”

He points to a shark’s tooth hanging on the wall; it’s the size of his fist.

“No way.”

Ronan shrugs.

Adam pokes through boxes of shells, Ronan looks on painfully. He doesn’t like being teased. And Adam is definitely teasing him. Maybe. Unless he’s just fucking with him. But that doesn’t sound much like Adam. But Adam teasing him really doesn’t sound much like Adam either.

Ronan doesn’t know what’s going on.

A moment passes in silence. The two of them wander down another aisle of shells.

Adam picks up a sand dollar. “Ronan.” His tone is casual.

“Mm?”

“I’m _really_ sorry about disappearing last night.”

“No, shit, there’s no need, forget about it.” _This is not what I was trying to talk about_. Ronan resists a glower.

“ _No_ , I feel bad.” He is focusing on the sand dollar in his hand, unwilling to look up. “Even if I didn’t do it on purpose, I feel bad about it. And I’m sorry.”

“You already said sorry,” Ronan replies, tone on the verge of complaining.

“Still.”

“Quit talking about it.” He sounds to Adam like he’s trying really hard to sound irritated.

Adam glances his way at this point and then blinks. He opens his mouth to speak, but it turns up into a smile; no words come out.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Adam tries to push the grin off his face. “It’s just that. Well. You look a little flushed.”

“I do _not_.”

“You do.”

“ _Well_ , I was worried for no reason. I wasn’t feeling well, and so I overreacted. Embarrassing. I don’t wanna talk about it, I’m glad you’re fine.” Ronan mumbles this as one sentence, suddenly interested in some blue shells to his left.

“Okay,” Adam hums. “What were you doing out of your room, anyway?”

“Well, you see, because I don’t have a bedtime these days…”

“Don’t be smart.”

“I was talking to Matthew.”

Adam smiles lightly. “That’s nice. I bet he was glad for that.” He steps down the aisle, brushing his fingers along the wood of the displays. There’s no way Adam doesn’t know that that’s not what he meant to talk about. The smug little smile on his lips says that well enough.

Ronan can only watch.

What game is Adam playing? Ronan wishes he knew the rules.

Adam walks slowly up and down store with soft footsteps, occasionally calling something to Blue or Gansey or Noah, sometimes taking the shells into his palms and catching the light against them, every so often turning to cast an ambiguous gaze Ronan’s way.

Ronan wonders if Adam knows they’re ambiguous.

They’re the most ambiguous things Ronan’s ever had the displeasure of enduring.

The five of them leave the shell shop without buying anything. Gansey is holding Blue’s hand as they walk down the street; Adam crosses his arms. Ronan clenches his fists.

They come across a tiny little diner with bright pink walls and paintings of flowers in the windows. A sign in the window advertises _Homemade Ice Cream_.

“ _Oh_ , can we go in, you guys?” Noah asks, dragging his fingers along the pink stucco.

“The living aren’t hungry again yet,” Ronan says.

“Of course we can go in,” Gansey counters.

They step inside, bell tinkling overhead. A sign invites them to seat themselves, and they settle into a booth, order a few sodas and milkshakes, and Noah cracks his knuckles.

“Can we play more Truth or Dare?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Gansey answers emphatically, banging his palm on the tabletop. Ronan rolls his eyes, Adam scoffs, and Blue sits back with a smile, though none of them object. “Yes. Noah, you first then, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Hm…” Gansey, who is sitting directly across from Ronan, taps his fingers against his chin as he locks eyes with Ronan. Ronan’s expression hardens, daring him to say something. “What’s Ronan’s best feature?”

“ _No_.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Noah says immediately, leaning his elbow on the table and looking at Ronan to his right.

“ _No_.”

“His dreamy eyes.” Noah sighs. “I love when he glares at me like that…” Gansey nods like he agrees.

Ronan folds his arms against his chest. “I’m ignoring you.”

“Nah, you can’t, you’re next,” Noah says. “Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he returns without argument.

“If you had to name your first-born child after a president of the United States, which one would you choose?” Noah spits out the question as though he’d had it ready. He probably did.

Ronan sighs, looking upwards thoughtfully. “Millard Fillmore.”

“Why?”

“You telling me you wouldn’t name your kid Millard?”

“Definitely not.”

Ronan makes a disinterested face. “I wouldn’t fuck with a kid named Millard. And no one remembers him enough for it to be a political statement.” He continues quickly before anyone can disagree, “Gansey, your go.”

“Aren’t you gonna ask me _truth or dare_?”

“Nah, I don’t have any ideas.”

“Truth or dare?” Blue asks, lighting up.

Gansey eyes her change of demeanor, suddenly afraid that she has an idea he won’t like. But is it for truth or for dare… He grimaces. “Uh, dare.”

Blue claps. Wrong choice. She lowers her voice, “Go get that girl’s phone number.”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“Her, get her phone number.” She nods towards a blonde waitress, busily working away at wrapping silverware in napkins behind the counter.

“Is this a test?”

“No, this is Truth or Dare.”

Noah looks like he’s about to start jumping up and down with how excited he is. “That’s _great_ , Blue, fantastic.”

She looks smug. Gansey looks pale.

He protests feebly, “She’s seen us holding hands, it won’t work.”

“No, she _hasn’t_ , now get up, and make sure you talk loud enough for us to hear.” Blue shoos Gansey out of the booth. He stumbles, but then straightens after casting them a look over his shoulder.

Then he rolls his shoulders, clears his throat, and saunters up to the counter, soliciting a bark of laughter from Ronan. Gansey leans forward against the counter, wearing his easy smile. The girl looks up, eyes flicking over Gansey assessingly.

“Can I help you?”

“I was hoping you might be able to.” He thinks he hears Blue snicker but ignores it.

“I’ll try my best?” Her voice is casual, though she wears a small smile. She folds her hands in front of her. Her nails are painted pink.

Gansey had not thought about what he would say. He resists every urge to groan, but instead he gives his best nervous smile, bats his eyelashes, and says, “I was looking for the phone number of a pretty girl, and I was wondering if you knew where I could find one?”

Adam has to cover his face to keep quiet. Ronan is biting the side of his hand.

The girl blinks and gives a laugh. “Ah, sorry, isn’t that your girlfriend over there?”

“Her? Nah, she’s my… sister.”

“ _Real_ ly?”

“Yeah, fraternal twins, actually.”

The girl’s lips quirk. “That’s sweet.”

“Yeah,” Gansey says wistfully. “So might you be able to help me out, after all?”

The girl eyes their table, everyone at it struggling to maintain composure. She looks back to Gansey, taking in his confident smile, kind eyes, and then she says slowly, “I think you might be…”

“Please.” It's the voice you can't say no to, and Gansey knows he's got it in the bag the moment the word leaves his lips.

She does something between a sigh and a laugh. Then she pulls a napkin to her, scribbles down a phone number and slides it across the counter. Gansey runs his fingers over the numbers and then meets her eyes. “I appreciate it. Could I get the young lady’s name?”

“It’s Jane.”

Gansey insists that they all leave quite quickly after that.

“You guys couldn’t stay calm for ten seconds?” Gansey cries breathlessly once they’re outside again and walking down the sidewalk. “You might have hurt her feelings!”

“ _Your sister_!” Blue exclaims between laughter, ignoring Gansey’s griping and grabbing him around the arm to pull him close to her—partly out of affection, partly just to keep herself from falling over.

“ _Your fraternal twin_!” Adam is wheezing.

“That was a fucking wreck, Dick,” Ronan confirms, chewing at his bracelets to keep from sniggering. “Forget hurting her feelings, I think she felt bad for _you_.”

“Oh, now, you can _not_ even talk!”

“Thank you for that, Blue,” Noah says. “Top notch stuff, that was.”

Gansey is pouting. “I got her number! It obviously wasn’t _that_ bad.”

The other four make a collective noise of vague disagreement.

 

* * *

 

 

Adam is sitting on the shore, close enough that the water can wash over his feet, but far enough that the waves don’t reach him every time. He’s making drip sandcastles, letting the wet sand run between his fingers to build bulbous towers before a wave can sweep it away. Coquinas dig through the sand, constantly getting caught in Adam’s hand. They tickle his palm before he lets them go free again.

The others are in the water, generally making a ruckus and causing trouble. They’d tried to get Adam to come in, but he’d declined. Something about being in the water felt like it would upset Ronan. Though he didn’t tell them that. And also Ronan had gotten him worried about riptides, even though he was _pretty_ sure that they were _pretty_ rare, but all the same.

Safer on the beach.

He’d like to feel safe in the water, but.

A wave takes down the tower he’d been working on. Noah and Ronan are shouting over each other, saying something Adam can’t decipher from here. Gansey says something, quieter, but still yelling to match the others.

Blue shouts, “Oh, _please_!”

There are more words Adam can’t make out. Then Noah and Blue are getting out, the latter grinning but looking exasperated. Noah gives her a high-five, says, “Catch you later,” and then blinks away. When Blue nears Adam, he thinks he sees her wink. He eyes her critically as she passes; she taps him on the head.

Adam then notices Gansey, high-stepping it, trying to chase after Blue, but being immensely slowed down by the water. She’s half-way up the beach by the time he makes it to the sand. Gansey throws Adam an indecipherable look before jogging past him.

Ronan is still in the water, making no moves to come out, though he isn’t standing that far in. He calls, “Come on, Parrish, get in the water.”

“Mm, I don’t know.”

“Don’t make me come over there.”

“I think I might.”

He can hear Ronan’s exaggerated sigh from where he’s sitting. Ronan trudges towards the shore, putting on a show of being irritated.

He collapses down next to Adam, folding his hands in his lap. “Hey.”

“Hi, Ronan.”

He jerks his head towards the ocean. “Come in the water.”

“I can’t swim.”

“Let me teach you.”

Adam finds himself staring Ronan in the eyes for a long time, feeling the weight of his gaze pressing heavily on his chest. He wants to say no, wants to just walk away. That would be the easy option.

But instead he hears himself say, “Okay.”

The weight in his chest blooms into something else.

It’s a sloppy lesson. Ronan repeats over and over that he really doesn’t know anything about swimming instructions, he’s not a teacher, and he apologizes more times than he can count, but Adam just lets him babble on. Blatantly flustered Ronan isn’t something he gets to see every day. It’s probable that he takes more delight than he ought to in Ronan’s discomposure. He isn't actually a terrible teacher (there isn't much to teach); it's more a building of self-confidence than of skills. Maybe that's why Adam had never learned.

Ronan’s hands ghost around Adam, never quite making contact, as though Adam were an art exhibit: _Please don’t touch_.

Although when Adam takes in a mouthful of water, panics for half a second and suddenly finds the water way too high, Ronan’s hand is there in a second, pulling him above the surface, towards shallower waters. Adam scrambles, catching Ronan on the shoulder and holding tight. Ronan drops his grip as soon as Adam is standing on his own two feet again, but Adam’s hand merely falls from his shoulder to his forearm. His chest is heaving, he’s not looking at Ronan; he’s hardly even aware he’s doing it.

He knew he wasn’t going to drown, he knew Ronan was there, and he can feel the sand under his feet now, but he—God, he hates swimming.

When he realizes he’s still holding onto Ronan, he drops his hand away brusquely. He gives a mumbled, embarrassed apology.

Adam tries to talk his way out of learning, but Ronan insists.

“Since when do you do things halfway, Parrish?”

True enough. They try again.

Adam avoids drowning, he even mostly keeps the water out of his mouth.

 _Stop moving your arms so much_.

 _Stop kicking so much_.

 _Don’t tell me you don’t know how to fucking blow bubbles_.

Ronan keeps almost touching Adam again and again, and he looks irritated every time he realizes he’s doing it. Adam pretends not to notice.

 _Pick your fucking feet up, man_.

There’s a lot of splashing, a lot of foolish flapping of arms, a lot of laborious treading of water, and a lot, a _lot_ of laughing, despite it all.

 _—You look like a dog. You look like a fucking drowning dog_.  
— _Well it’s not my fault you’re a shit teacher_!

 

— _If I drown now, at least I won’t have to learn.  
—Or if you just shut up and learn, you won’t have to drown…_

 

— _Listen to me. Michael Phelps doesn’t doggy-paddle, so neither do you_.

 

— _All you need to do is keep your head above water, come on now._  
— _I’m trying!_

 

— _Here. No. No, no.  Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Can I_ —? At this point, Ronan holds out his hands in question.

It’s a question that stretches a lot farther than just this haphazard swimming lesson. Both of them stare for a beat longer than necessary, unsure of whether they'd been hoping for this eventuality or fearing it. Adam moves, taking his hands cautiously, a burst of uncertainty rushing through him. But all Ronan does is keep Adam from sinking, pulling him through the water, hardly able to look him in the eye.

 _This is ridiculous_ , Adam thinks.

The ocean really isn’t the best place to learn to swim, they both have to admit that. The waves are relentless, the seaweed is pretty gross and annoying, and Adam wonders if he’d rather be coughing up salt water or chlorine water.

 

— _Come on, Parrish, swim on over, right over here_! Ronan can’t be standing more than ten feet away. Adam wavers. _You were just going it, idiot. Come on_.  
— _You were holding my hands then_!

 

But he does it.

Adam has never been slow to learn anything, and this isn’t an exception. All he needed was a kick in the ass, and if anyone was gonna give him one, it was _definitely_ Ronan. It takes the whole afternoon—the sky is deep orange by the time they’re treading back up to the house again—but Adam can very tentatively say he can swim. 

Well, when Ronan’s there. When Ronan is there, he can definitely swim.

He doesn’t know if he’d do it if Ronan were absent.

As soon as they open the sliding glass door, Gansey jumps up from where he’s sitting on the couch with Blue and shouts, “Adam!”

“Gansey?”

“I saw you out there!”

Adam makes a noise of embarrassment and tries to duck away from Gansey, who looks suspiciously like he might want to hug Adam. “It’s nothing, you all can do it, it's really not exciting,” he mumbles, skirting around the couch towards his room. He evades the maybe-hug, cheeks hot.

Gansey just sighs after him. “Fine. You’re amazing, Adam.”

“Shut up,” he calls from where he’s disappeared into the hallway.

When Gansey hears a door shut, he continues, “You’re amazing too, Ronan.”

He makes a face. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You did!”

Ronan makes another face. “Sure. But you’re embarrassing him. Stop it.”

Gansey collapses back onto the couch, “Fine, fine.” Pause. “But… If I may, I did see… You were holding his hands.”

“ _Gansey_.”

Blue casts a pointed look at Gansey.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“Sorry, what’s happening?” Blue pipes up.

“Ronan is supposed to—”

“Well let’s just tell the whole world why don’t we.”

“Jane is one person, not the whole world, and whatever, you’re gonna do it soon enough. Ronan is supposed to get his _act together_ and _admit his feelings_ to Adam.” Ronan makes a disgusted noise at the way Gansey says _feelings_.

“Is he, now?” Blue is grinning. “I had no idea that _Ronan_ had _feelings_.”

“Yes. He’s taking a terribly long time, though.”

“I’m going to my room.”

“But you’re still doing great, Ronan!” Gansey calls after him. “As Confucius once said, ‘It does not matter—’”

“Shut _up_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> berlin next week, but i aint gone Yet (~:
> 
> tho i had to rewrite this chapter like 3 times to get it right Yikes
> 
> also in case it wasn't clear: y'all's comments and messages on tumblr make me so Crazy happy, there's no way y'all are enjoying this fic as much as i am, bless you, i hope you all have great days ily stay safe, 89 days to trk ❤


	8. Chapter 8

Noah is building a fire in the metal fire pit out on the deck. Rather, that’s what he says he’s doing, but he’s mostly just prodding at the coals with the fire poker and occasionally throwing in scraps of paper or leaves to watch them burn. He really finished building it at least twenty minutes ago, but Gansey doesn’t really know what building a fire involves, so he doesn’t exactly take notice.

He and Blue are in the kitchen, breaking up graham crackers and chocolate bars, pouring marshmallows into bowls. Blue had poured a bag of M&Ms into a different bowl and is now nearly finished sorting them into separate bowls based on color.

Blue, though she desperately wished to, had refrained from sharing the information of Ronan’s task with Adam. She knew it would perhaps give him more confidence, but this felt like a secret, and secret-sharing felt a bit too much like meddling for her taste. He’d have to get by without her for this.

Blue whispers to Gansey as she tosses a brown M&M into its rightful bowl, “I cannot believe you set up this whole trip as a ploy to get Ronan to ask out Adam.”

“Well, something had to be done.”

“Mostly what I mean is that I can’t believe you _noticed_.”

Gansey, injured, whispers, “I have known Ronan Lynch longer than any of you, and I will be damned if I didn’t notice something so—”

The sliding glass door opens. He stops, waiting to see if Ronan or Adam walk in, but instead Noah sits down on the counter. “Are you guys talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

“The answer is probably yes, but…?” Blue says.

“They’re so obvious, aren’t they?”

“ _Yes_ ,” they respond in unison, tones matching in exasperation.

“They’re silly,” Noah says, smiling. Then his expression hardens. “And stupid.”

“Where are they now?” Gansey questions.

“Down in the water. Can you believe Adam? _Swimming_? He’s swimming. They were holding hands yesterday. They’re probably holding hands right now. It’s gross.”

Blue agrees, “No-doubt they’re both thinking it was just _Oh, it’s just a swimming lesson, all platonic_ , because _that’s_ the way normal people think.” She scoffs. “But even then, who just casually teaches someone how to swim? That’s like. That’s serious stuff.”

“Oh, I _know_ they’re both thinking that. And it is, isn’t it?” Noah grimaces. “It’s so flirty. It hurts me.”

“I mean,” Gansey sounds thoughtful, “you never notice that kind of stuff when you’re in the middle of it, do you? It must be hard. Right?”

“Apparently it is!” Blue laughs, tossing a final red M&M into place and then picking up a couple bowls. “Noah, help us take this stuff out.”

He gives a salute and hops off the counter.

 

* * *

 

 

“So,” Adam says, “how _do_ you get out of a riptide?”

Ronan, standing a mere foot or two in front of him, sighs. “It doesn’t matter how, they don’t even happen that much…”

“I wasn’t trying to bring that up again,” Adam says quickly, reaching through the water to touch Ronan’s arm. Ronan’s gaze flickers sharply at his fingers, which are a measly blur under the water. Adam drops his hand immediately. He continues hastily, “I-I just think I should know. I really don’t know how.”

“Ah…” Ronan looks distracted. “I… You’re just supposed to let it take you out, try swimming parallel to the beach.” He gives a weak cough, eyes looking everywhere but Adam. “It really, _really_ doesn’t’ matter though.”

“Okay. Good.” Adam nods. “I’m glad to know.”

“Good.” Ronan bites his lip, nodding slightly.

“ _Guys_!” Noah shouts from the shore. “Come in, we’re ready!”

Ronan starts towards the beach as though he’d been waiting for Noah’s call, but Adam doesn’t move right away. He doesn’t know what he’s doing wrong. Was he not supposed to touch Ronan? What was that look for? Because Adam is _trying_. He is trying so hard to reach out _somehow_. But Ronan doesn’t seem to be taking any of it. And he sure as hell isn’t returning any of his gestures.

Well, there was the swimming thing. The holding hands.

But that was just because he was teaching him. He had to do that. _Most_ of the time they were in the water yesterday, Ronan had been trying extremely hard _not_ to put a hand on him.

Adam is giving him all the signs, why won’t he just come out and say something?

Ronan looks over his shoulder, and Adam hurries to follow.

God, Adam doesn’t know what he’s doing. _Help me out, Ronan, help me out_ , he thinks desperately. He’s come to the end of his rope, he doesn’t know what else to do. If Ronan won’t try, well… He doesn’t know where to go from there.

The thing in the shell shop… Well, he didn’t know what to say.

When they’re out of the water, Adam resumes his usual battle of trying not to stare at Ronan. But the way the setting sun is reflecting off wet skin, the way his tattoo wraps lovingly along the lines of his back and around the curves of his shoulders and neck—well. Adam doesn’t remember becoming enamored.

And yet, and yet.

 

* * *

 

 

A feeling Ronan doesn’t like very much has been curled inside him since yesterday. It feels a lot like nerves—somewhere between fear and anticipation, along with the sickening sense that things aren’t like they seem, that he’s getting in too deep, setting himself up for catastrophe.

He is afraid. He lets himself feel it.

Because Adam keeps _doing things_. His fingers are too close to Ronan, his eyes are too focused on Ronan, his attention is too drawn to Ronan for it to be an accident. Adam knows what he’s doing. Adam is so, completely aware of what he’s doing, but he won’t do anything more. He’s perfectly content to give wayside glances, but as soon as Ronan had tried to bring it up—“Can’t help you if I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Adam is playing games.

Ronan isn’t interested in playing games.

But another thing—the swimming, God, the fucking swimming. _It doesn’t mean anything that he let you teach him that._

But God, _doesn’t it_? Does he want it to? He’d meant what he said to Gansey in the car the other day. He’d meant all of it.

And yet, and yet.

* * *

 

 

Gansey has made the biggest mess with s’mores that Adam has _ever_ seen. Gansey, king of Virginia, the son you wish you had, _Most Likely to Succeed_ , clean-cut Gansey cannot eat a s’more without getting it everywhere. Blue has wiped marshmallow off the tip of his nose at least seven times. He’s completely aware that there’s chocolate on his chin, but he cannot be any neater.

“A poor man’s food, what can you do,” Ronan mumbles, leaned forward in his seat.

Adam just laughs.

Ronan and Adam are on one side of the fire pit, Blue and Gansey on a bench on the other, though they’re farther back, out of hearing distance when Ronan and Adam whisper. Noah ducked into the house fifteen minutes ago and they haven’t seen him since. Blue has her legs over Gansey’s lap and she keeps leaning over to kiss marshmallow fluff from his lips. It’s the sort of display that would maybe be awkward for the other two, except the fire is like a wall, and they’re used to it by now, anyway. And also after the first time, Ronan had made a noise of revulsion, and he suspected that only made her want to do it more (Gansey had the good sense to at least look a little sheepish), so Ronan was now trying pretty hard to avoid remarking on their PDA, in fear of accidentally inciting it.

Ronan leans back in his chair to grab another marshmallow. “You want one, Parrish?” He asks, spearing one on his stick.

“Sure.”

Ronan throws it before Adam knows what’s happening, and it thumps him on the side of the head. “ _Hey_.”

Ronan smirks and puts another one on a stick for him.

Adam takes it with an exaggerated glare.

Ronan is one of those people who lets the marshmallow catch fire and watches as it turns black. Adam can’t say he’s really all that surprised. However, he also uses double the chocolate, which is at least a little less predictable.

“What’re you staring at?” he asks lightly as he prepares his s’more with more care than he does most things.

“Was I staring?”

“Hm.” Ronan tosses the stick to the side and straightens his graham crackers. “Well you’re certainly not doing anything with that marshmallow I so _kindly_ gave you.”

“I was just…” Adam trails off, unsure of what the proper response is. He adjusts his marshmallow and dips it towards the fire. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to.”

Ronan makes a muffled noise, as though that hadn’t been the answer he’d been expecting. Or wanting. A bit of Blue’s laughter trails over to them. Adam doesn’t know what else there is to say. He wishes he did, _oh_ he wishes he did.

When he tries to imagine things to say to Ronan, he comes up blank. He thinks he knows what he wants, but even that he can’t fathom into words.

He is so useless. Maybe he should tell Blue. _Blue_ would get something done. He should tell Blue that he’s hopeless and nothing is gonna happen unless someone just comes out and says something, and Lord _knows_ that isn’t gonna happen, but otherwise, they’re just going to be dancing around the subject for the rest of the summer, until eventually the question—the question that has been all but asked—is left unanswered and orphaned somewhere in the backs of their minds.

Would that hurt Ronan more than if they tried and it didn’t work out?

Adam makes his s’more in silence, pulling his feet up into his seat and sitting cross-legged. His arms are heavy, his chest full. A breeze blows a cloud of smoke into his eyes.

“Why is everyone so quiet?”

“ _Noah_!” Adam gasps, jumping a little.

Noah, who had appeared just behind him and Ronan, grins. “Don’t worry, I’m here to save everyone.” He runs hands over Adam’s and Ronan’s heads before jumping up onto the railing, feet dangling. “Would you rather be a cat or a dog?”

Ronan and Blue both go for cat, while Adam and Gansey say dog. “And you, Noah?” Gansey returns.

“A cat.” Then he looks right at Adam and says, “Because I’d still have eight lives left.”

“ _Enough_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Adam finds Ronan on the beach around two in the morning. Adam hadn’t meant to stay up late, but these days he seems to be picking up on Ronan’s insomnia. The past few months have left him with a lot of things to keep him awake, and Ronan’s just another on top of the pile. Adam had looked out his window, seen Ronan, and gone out to meet him without second-thought.

Ronan—leaned back, hands in the sand, one knee up, the other leg stretched before him—doesn’t say anything when Adam sits down next to him. Adam doesn’t say anything either. Adam feels like there _is_ something to be said, but the words remain caught in his throat. His eyes are glued to the dark horizon; he waits for the words to come. Eventually it’s Ronan who says them.

“Adam.” Ronan’s voice is weird in a way that Adam can’t pinpoint.

“Yeah?”

“I think we have something to talk about.”

“Do we?”

Everything about him shifts in an instant. “Oh.” His laughter is spiteful, palpable. “My bad, maybe we don’t.”

Adam scrambles to recover, “No, I—I don’t know. Tell me what you mean.”

“ _God, Adam_. Why can’t you just—? Sorry, no, I was wrong. We do have something to talk about, but it’s not what I was thinking before.” His mouth twists to a snarl, “Quit fucking around with me, okay? Just fucking quit it, because I’m tired of it.”

“ _What_? Wait, Ronan, I…” Adam struggles to keep up. “What are you—?”

“All the _touching_ , all the evasive conversations, the playing dumb, just _stop all of it_. I thought it might have been—I thought—God. If you’re just doing it because it’s funny, because it’s some kind of shitty game to you, or something like—” Ronan stops abruptly, putting his wrist to his mouth. His tone breaks from something livid to something more desperate. “Just stop. Please.”

“Ronan…” His name falls slowly from Adam’s lips. “I think we’ve gotten very mixed up.” Adam turns, turning to sit so that he’s facing Ronan. “I haven’t—”

“So I’m just wrong about all of that then?” Ronan’s voice is still sharp, though it’s quieted down. “I’ve just been imagining you messing with me?”

“No,” Adam breathes, wanting to punch himself for being so stupid as everything comes rushing into his mind, how everything must’ve looked to Ronan, “No, no, no, you definitely weren’t, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was, but I definitely was, God. I’m sorry. Um.” His mind is whirling a hundred miles per hour, “But you’re wrong about the reason.”

“And what’s that?” He’s back to sounding mad, and he won’t look at Adam.

“I was afraid.”

Ronan scoffs. “Of?”

Adam closes his eyes for half a second. He takes a deep breath. “We need to start this conversation over. On the same page. Can we do that?”

Ronan finally meets his eyes, and the look swells guilt in every inch of Adam’s body. Ronan’s face is ever so slightly ducked, his body drawn closer to himself. His eyes are different than usual—more searching. His jaw tightens. He gives a nod.

“Thank you.” Adam presses his hands together in front of him and takes another deep breath. “I’m sorry, first of all. Wow, I am so sorry. I didn’t realize what I was doing. I mean it. I didn’t realize it.” He exhales longly and then carefully says, “I knew you… _liked_ me, I knew it, and I thought I was just… I thought I was just waiting. Thought I was being neutral.”

“Being neutral is kind of shitty, too,” Ronan mumbles, dragging his fingers through the sand. He gives no retaliation to Adam’s statement, which simultaneously makes Adam’s heart pound and sink. He’d been right, Blue had been right, of course they’d been right, there had never really been a question, and yet Adam had… What had Adam done?

Adam is facing Ronan, legs tucked underneath him, right knee touching Ronan’s left. “I _know_ , listen to me, I’m so sorry, this isn’t what I wanted.”

There’s a terribly long silence before Ronan asks quietly, “What did you want?”

Adam doesn’t wanna talk about the stupid shit he’d been thinking, Adam doesn’t want to voice every stupid excuse he’d given himself for not doing anything over the past week. Now, looking into his eyes, all his excuses sound idiotic. What did he want? He wanted Ronan to make the first move, he wanted to know he was making the right decision, he wanted to—

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He’d wanted not to hurt Ronan’s feelings, and he’d gone and done it anyway.

“I want—” He bites his lip, voice faltering. “I’m sorry for coming about this all wrong. I want this to work out, anyway.”

Ronan looks like he wants to ask a dozen questions.

Adam has only one. “Can I kiss you?”

For a moment, Adam feels like he’s falling, like the whole world’s dropped out from underneath him. Head-first isn’t Adam’s usual tactic; nothing in Ronan’s expression shifts. Then, out of nowhere, an airy laugh escapes Ronan’s lips. “ _That’s_ what you want?” Ronan’s eyes are meticulously searching Adam’s face for signs of dishonesty, and when he comes up with none, he laughs again. “You’ve been fucking around, skirting around the issue, and that’s—” He drops his voice, “That’s really what you want?”

“Please? If I haven’t completely made you hate me…” His smile is feeble.

“Shit, I could never…” he breathes, sounding rather annoyed by the fact.

Adam’s smile brightens, though he chews his lip as he inches forward. He keeps glancing at Ronan’s eyes and then his lips and then back to his eyes again. He lifts his hand but then drops it again. His other hand twitches towards Ronan’s hand but then stops. He whispers, “I think I’ve forgotten how to do this.”

“Well, shit, if you’ve forgotten, and I don’t know how, I guess we’re out of luck.”

“Shut up. Okay, okay,” he mumbles to himself, scooting closer. Adam takes a sharp breath.

He lifts a careful hand towards the side of Ronan’s face, thumb running along jaw in the way he’d so often— _so often_ —imagined, bringing his fingers to rest at the back of his neck. His eyes flick across Ronan’s face, waiting for him to change his mind, to tell him to stop, but it doesn’t come.

Adam inhales deeply, places his other hand over Ronan’s, where it’s half-buried in the sand, closes his eyes, and pulls Ronan towards him.

Adam recognizes the feeling you get when you’ve been staring at something for ages, trying to figure out the answer to a question, the solution to a problem, and all of a sudden it hits you, and you feel stupid for not recognizing it the whole time. And kissing Ronan is the simplest, most clear-cut answer to the stupidest, most obvious question ever.

Ronan is careful, tentative, the way most people are when they’ve never kissed anyone before; Adam finds it endearing, the way his lips mirror everything Adam does, quirking uncertainly when he feels Adam’s tongue brush his lips.

But Adam pulls back after too short a moment.

“That bad, was I?”

“No!” Adam says hastily. He pulls him into another kiss, quick but earnest. Ronan looks winded. “I just wanted to make sure you were… okay?”

“ _Okay_? Adam, I have wanted…” He trails off, apparently bewildered. “I’ve wanted this for so damn long?”

A smile breaks over Adam’s face, and then he has to cover his face with his hands because it embarrasses him too much. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, dragging his fingers down his cheeks. “Yikes, I’m sorry for… whatever I was doing.”

“Well, it’s okay now. I mean, fuck you, Adam Parrish, but like. It’s all good.” He leans over, trying to catch Adam’s gaze again. When he gets it, he carefully asks, “You said you were afraid. Why? Because I’m so damn scary?”

Adam groans, fingers still pressed to his cheeks, hands hanging half-way off his face. “I thought I was gonna mess up and ruin everything.” His hands drop to his lap. “I didn’t wanna… hurt your feelings. Or something.”

“Well you’ve still got time.”

“ _Stooop_.”

But Ronan is smiling, really smiling, and so Adam just scoffs. Ronan lifts a hand to Adam’s arm and says, “I’m gonna do that again, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

Adam, however, is the one to lean in and pull their lips back together.

It’s a slow kiss, the kind Adam never would have thought Ronan capable of, but _God_ is he. He picks it up all too quickly, and if Adam didn’t know Ronan’s thing about telling the truth, he would definitely assume the boy had been lying about never kissing anyone before. Ronan sucks at Adam’s lower lip, drawing him ever closer.

Ronan seems unsure of what to do with his hands, though. Adam pulls his right hand into his own, fingers knotted tightly together; he takes Ronan’s other hand and guides it to his waist. With his own fingers, Adam finds Ronan’s jaw again.

Kissing Adam is different than Ronan had expected. Firstly, he hadn’t known _what_ to expect in general, but secondly, it felt like he was breaking. Everything he’d ever felt was so much simpler than he’d dreamed it was, everything seemed so much _fucking_ easier, and all he’d ever wanted in the first place was to watch out for Adam Parrish. He wanted to hold this stupid, idiot boy, and here he was. Real—his skin under his hand, his lips _on his_ , Adam’s hands at the base of his neck.

Ronan feels humbled, held together by a boy.

Adam, on the other hand, is euphoric in the most rudimentary way. He hadn’t known, he hadn’t known, he hadn’t known.

Adam has to stop when he starts laughing. At first he tries not to break away, grinning between kisses on his lips, kisses at the side of his mouth, but it becomes too much and he has to drop away. His hand is still in Ronan’s though, as he falls back, laughter filling the air.

“Holy _shit_ , Ronan,” he breathes. Adam falls back in the sand, holding Ronan’s hand close to his chest; he presses a kiss to his knuckles and then lets it go, running his hands through his hair. “Oh my god. What’re we gonna tell Gansey?”

“Mm…” Ronan looks thoughtfully at Adam. He sinks onto his side and props his head up with his hand. “How about… we don’t tell Gansey?”

“We _don’t_ tell Gansey?” Adam sounds more surprised than anything else.

“Yeah, here’s the thing. Gansey _really_ wanted me to ask you out while we were on this trip. That was kind of his goal, for that to happen by the end of this. And he is _terribly_ annoyed with me, for good reason, I guess, but whatever. My point is: We can mess with him.”

“Ronan, we can _not_ …” But he’s grinning still.

“We _can_ , oh fuck, we can, like nothing that’s ever happened before. We will _never_ have an opportunity like this again, Parrish. Listen to me: I tell him, _Oh I don’t think I’m really that into him anymore. He’s not even that cute_.” Adam makes an offended face, “Oh shut up, and so anyway, we totally like… shit, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. He’ll be aghast by the end of it, though, I promise you.”

Adam nods along, “Okay, okay. But that’s all assuming he’s not watching us from the house right now.”

“That’s true, he might have surveillance on us. Or maybe just his nose pressed against the glass…” Ronan looks up towards the house and then rolls his eyes. Then his eyes land on Adam again, lying in the sand, grinning stupidly, t-shirt riding up a bit above the waist of his pants. “Did you actually fucking kiss me, Parrish?”

“Yeah, I fucking did. And I’m about to do it again, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> berlin was amazing and also i read the foxhole court, which y'all should also do (':
> 
> and!!! i posted a [one-shot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5891179) last week, and it'd mean a lot of y'all would check that out!!❤  
> i know everyone hates the ship, but in my defense... it _is_ an AU,,,,,,,,,,
> 
> luv y'all ❤❤


	9. Chapter 9

It had been easy to forget about the things that had been dogging Adam’s brain about why _not_ to initiate something with Ronan, and the next morning… it was the same. He had absolutely _no_ intention of thinking about anything that could cause him grief at all. He just wasn’t gonna do it—he has worried enough about other things to last him for the rest of his life. As far as he was concerned, everything was fantastic.

He wakes up with sand in his hair and a ghost of a smile on his lips, despite the fact that there is someone knocking softly but incessantly at his door. “Yeah?” he calls, rubbing his eyes.

In one swift motion, Ronan opens the door, steps inside, and then shuts it behind him without a sound. Adam raises his eyebrows. “Was that a dream?” Ronan’s question is flat.

“No, stupid. What time is it?”

“8:45.”

“God.”

Ronan is leaned against the door, hands behind him, brow furrowed, and lips pursed. He didn’t just come in here to ask if it was a dream, that much is obvious, and Adam waits in silence for him to continue for an extraordinary amount of time, content with merely openly staring at Ronan, before he resigns himself, sighs, and asks, “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, listen. I gotta say… The reason I’ve never kissed anyone before is because I don’t do the casual relationship thing. And I was just wondering… I should clarify…”

Adam is sleepy, but he recognizes the tone in Ronan’s voice. His statement had trailed off, though not in a weak way, not as though he’d lost his thoughts or his confidence. The timber of his voice remained steady, dropping off out of an understanding that the other could fill in the blanks. He could. Adam gestures for Ronan to come over; he crosses the room slowly in long strides, stopping at the edge of Adam’s bed. Adam sighs and grabs his hand, “Get in the bed, Ronan. Come here.”

“We won’t fit.”

“Get in the twin bed.”

It’s Ronan’s turn to sigh as Adam scoots back to make room, and then he does as he’d been told. They both fit perfectly fine, but Adam has never been one for _I told you so_ ’s. “Ronan. This is very weird for me. Kissing you? I like it. But it’s totally crazy. I spent forever telling myself why I should _not_ be doing this. You were just my friend yesterday and now? What?” Adam makes a questioning face. “What do you want?”

Ronan’s gaze is unwavering for a long moment, and then he says, “I want you to be my boyfriend.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Okeedokee.”

“I mean I wanna take you on dates.”

“Please.”

“I wanna hold your hand.”

“I’d like that.”

“I wanna buy you shit.”

Adam sighs. “As long as it’s stuff I don’t need.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“And when you go to college?”

Adam’s expression softens. “We’ll work it out when we get there.”

“That’s easy to say right now.”

“I think it’s okay if right now is easy. That’s what _I_ want.” Then Adam smiles, “After all, we’ve got some fucking with Gansey to focus on. We’re pretty busy already.”

“That’s true.”

Adam nods and then yawns a moment later. “Did you have to come in here so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep and this was as long as I could wait.”

“How long have you been awake?”

“Well if, like you say, that wasn’t a dream…?” He trails off in question, and Adam shakes his head amusedly. “ Then… all night?”

“Ronan.”

“I can’t help it!”

“I’m sorry, I know.” Adam extracts his hands from the blankets, pushing them away. He pulls Ronan’s hands into his own.

“How are you so relaxed?” Ronan wonders aloud, letting him take his hands but able only to stare in return.

“Aren’t you?” Adam remembers what he’d had with Blue, the anxiety that came with it, the worry that he was always doing something wrong. He’d wanted to kiss her so badly, he’d wanted to _be kissed_ so badly. But right now he could hardly even remember what those negative feelings were like; he can’t imagine being more at ease than he is right in this moment. He’d had a long time to notice Ronan’s feelings, a long time to grow comfortable with their presence, their weight in his chest. He’d had only a short time to realize his own feelings, and so now they were too abundant to hold in: For Adam, everything felt like it was in place, where it was meant to be for a long time.

“I’m freaking the fuck out, Parrish.”

“You don’t look it.” 

“Years of practice.”

“Mm…” Adam runs his thumbs over the backs of Ronan’s hands.

“Like, _how are you doing that_?”

“Moving my fingers, you mean?”

“Come on,” he practically whines. “You’re so… comfortable.”

“If you’re uncomfortable, I can stop.” Adam loosens his grip around Ronan’s hands.

“No, no,” Ronan clarifies quickly, bringing their fingers together again. “It’s just. A lot.”

Adam wanted a lot. He nods. “Okay.”

“Do you…?”

“I understand.”

Adam pulls one hand from Ronan’s and drags his fingertips up the back of his hand, along his arm, and to his shoulder. Then back down, and then he runs his fingers along the inner side of his arm. Ronan looks afraid to move. “So are you my secret boyfriend?”

“If you want.” Ronan sounds like he’s choking.

“God, I have never seen you like this.”

“Like what?” His voice is hard again in an instant.

“Ah, there it is.”

 

* * *

 

 

Adam doesn’t quite manage to fall back asleep, but he reaches a state where he is abruptly very annoyed once again by a knocking at his door some indiscernible amount of time later. “ _What_?” If it’s Ronan again, so help him—

But then he feels Ronan’s hands still in his, and it’s Gansey’s voice that’s muffling through the door. “Can I come in? I’ve got a question for you.”

Adam’s eyes fly open and Ronan has a wicked look painted across his face. “It begins,” he whispers. And then he jumps out of bed, leaving Adam to scramble up confusedly. Ronan makes a _Go on_ motion with his hands and then opens Adam’s closet, where he’s hung all his clothes. Ronan makes a face of approval, remembering all of his own clothes, still in or around his suitcase.

He gets into a sitting position before calling, “Yeah, sure.” He futilely runs a hand through his hair in attempt to compose it, as though that’s the important or noticeable thing here.

Gansey opens the door with an interesting look on his face, though it swiftly shifts to interested when he notices Ronan. “Uh, good morning, Adam. And Ronan. What are you…?” His eyes flick between Ronan and Adam faster than Adam thought possible.

Ronan speaks before Adam can even collect his thoughts. “Morning, Dick. I’m helping Adam read the symbols on the washing instructions for his clothes.” He holds up a completely normal black t-shirt, points to the tag (which Adam definitely cannot read from here) and says, “This one means dry-clean only.” He tosses the shirt into his dirty clothes pile. He picks up a pair of jeans. “Tumble-dry, low heat.”

Gansey looks between Adam and Ronan again, more slowly this time. Befuddled is the word Adam would use, largely because he’s feeling it himself.

“This one means air dry only.” Ronan’s voice does not allow for arguments.

“Um. Okay, cool, glad to see you helping out for once, Lynch. Adam. Can I…?” He gestures to Adam, as though to ask him to leave the room with him, but then on second thought, he looks to Ronan, “Or could you…?” And gestures for Ronan to leave the room without him.

“Sure thing,” Ronan agrees, stepping in for Adam, who doesn’t seem to have found his voice again yet. “Catch you guys later.”

When the door closes behind Ronan, Gansey’s demeanor doesn’t shift, rather it seems to grow even more confused. “What was—was he? What were you two…?”

“Sorting my laundry,” Adam says, somehow keeping from smiling. He shrugs. “Like he said. I don’t know anything about laundry, he was really helping.”

“And why were you doing that _now_?”

“We stayed up all night playing Connect Four, so we were already awake.”

Gansey nods. “Okay… Okay, sure.”

“You had a question?”

“Yeah, oddly enough. I was just going to ask if there was anything weird going on with Ronan, but it appears everything is exactly as normal.” Gansey can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether this is a sarcastic statement or not. It’s far enough outside of normal to be confusing, but close enough to normal to maybe be plausible in some timeline (Not this one). So Gansey just nods again, thoughtful, baffled.

“Yeah,” Adam says smiling, “He’s a great friend.”

“Definitely. Yes. That… he is. That he is. Well. That’s all, I’ll see myself out.” He opens the door and almost runs directly into Ronan, who pushes back inside Adam’s room.

“We weren’t done sorting clothes,” he says simply to answer Gansey’s expression. Ronan shuts the door behind him.

“You are. Out of your mind.”

“He totally believed that.”

“First of all: As though I don’t know how to do my own laundry? As though I haven’t been doing my own laundry since I was six? Second of all: He thinks we’re idiots. He thinks we’re complete idiots.”

“Nah… Though you really do have to do some laundry now. Gotta be believable.”

“Nothing about that was believable.”

“Nothing about what’s actually happening is believable, either,” Ronan says lightly, picking up the clothes he’d discarded. He begins putting them back on their hangers with acute attention.

“Don’t be self-deprecating.”

Ronan grins, despite himself. “Sure, okay.” He takes a step away from the closet, closing it silently before turning to look at Adam again. He folds his arms behind his back and leans against the closet doors. “Are you sure about this?”

“I’m so sure.”

“That’s the last time I’m gonna ask, then.”

“Cool.” Adam smiles and pulls his feet onto the bed and then scoots back against the wall. He cocks his head slightly, a silent question, which Ronan answers by shuffling back across the room. He sits next to Adam, closer than he ever could’ve done before.

Ronan reaches up, ghosts his fingers along Adam’s cheek, but then freezes. Adam notices the pause and leans slightly into his touch. “Hm?”

“What’s your favorite color?”

Adam laughs. “Really?”

“Really. What is it?”

“Ah… I don’t know if I have one.”

“Come on.”

“Green?”

“Like, forest green, or…?”

“No,” Adam says, ignoring the smirk on Ronan’s lips, “Like, grey-green, probably.”

“Grey-green. Okay.”

“Is yours black?”

“God, you’re good. Better than me. Out of my league.” Ronan’s fingers drift towards the back of Adam’s head, catching in his hair.

Adam does a pretty good job of feigning exasperation while grabbing Ronan’s free hand. Their lips are a moment apart, and Adam is thoroughly simply enjoying the feeling of Ronan’s hand in his hair, the expression on his face, the careful way he tightens his grip around Adam’s hand.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Goddamn,” Adam hisses. He’d been appreciating almost-kissing, but he _had_ been planning on something else in approximately two seconds, and _who_ told everyone that the party was in Adam’s room this morning? He doesn’t have any time to say _Come in_ , much less to pull away from Ronan before Noah appears just inside the door.

“Holy shit.”

“Noah—”

“No, no, Adam, shush.” He waves his hands in front of himself. “Shush. Are you guys—?”

“No,” Ronan cuts in. His hand is still at the back of Adam’s head, and he pulls him closer, without taking his eyes off Noah. Adam makes a mumbled noise, surprised at the gesture. “No, we’re not.”

Adam’s face is practically against Ronan’s chest, with the way he’s leaned over.

Noah looks unimpressed.

“We’re not doing anything,” Ronan whispers. His breath ruffles Adam’s hair.

“I won’t say anything to anyone, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Adam can hear the sharp smile on Ronan’s lips. He closes his fingers more tightly around Adam’s, where their hands are tucked out of Noah’s sight. (That hand is also basically the only thing keeping Adam from completely falling over into Ronan. His other hand is on Ronan’s knee, and Adam can’t tell if Noah’s looking at it or not, but it feels terribly on-display. He likes the feeling of Ronan’s hand in his hair too much to even think about trying to pull out of his grip, though.)

“I see you two,” Noah says calmly, seriously. “I’ll pretend to be surprised when you buffoons accidentally give yourselves away, but I see you.” His narrowed eyes shift then, and he’s grinning. “Okay but since when?”

“What do you mean?”

“Adam.”

“Last night,” he complies.

Noah just grins wider in response. “Fucking… finally.” Then he shakes his head, gives a clap, and continues, “And Gansey wants a rematch at Go Fish, so after lunch, that’s the plan. Get ready for it.”

“Okay. But… Didn’t he win like half the time?” Adam asks.

Noah gives a shrug, burying his hands in his pockets. “ _Someone_ wants a rematch at Go Fish, I don’t know who. But for now, it’s like, twelve, so lunch is—”

“We’ll be out for lunch, I promise,” Ronan cuts him off. “Tell Gansey we’ll be there. We’ll be out… for lunch. Though we also have laundry to do.”

“We don’t have laundry to do.”

“We do have laundry to do.”

“Right. I’ll leave you to that.” Noah’s gone as quick as he’d come.

“I wonder when Blue will show up n—”

Ronan cuts Adam off.

 

* * *

 

 

“First, you need to sort your colors and your whites…”

“Okay, no one actually does that. And also, again, I know how to do laundry.” Adam grabs the hamper away from him and sets it on the counter. The laundry room is basically just a rosy-smelling closet in the garage, and from the way Gansey was staring at them when they walked through the living room, he was surprised he didn’t follow them out here to supervise.

“If you say so…” Ronan hoists himself onto the counter and watches as Adam collects all of his dirty (worn-one-time) clothes into his arms and shoves them into the washing machine all at once.

Adam turns the dial, throws in some detergent, and then turns on heel towards the door. He’s got his hand on the knob when he notices Ronan still sitting, heels kicking against the cabinets, looking his way, terribly unimpressed. “Are you coming?” Adam asks slowly.

“Nah. Thought not.”

Adam’s hand drops away from the door. His voice is irrationally incredulous when he says, “You want to kiss me again?”

“Well, it’s a lot less coy when you come out and say it like that.”

“Sorry, I just—” A cautious smile spreads over his lips, “That’s a nice feeling. Knowing that. It’s nice.”

“Okay, Lord Byron.” And he rolls his eyes, but his tone is amused, light, and then he holds out a hand to Adam, who takes it with a breath of laughter. Ronan, still on the counter, pulls Adam in front of him, between his knees. Adam puts his hands on the counter top, one on each side of Ronan and looks at the other expectantly. Ronan parts his lips, pauses, then asks, “Do you have a favorite book?”

“Book?” Adam hums thoughtfully, fingers tapping the counter. “God, uh. Good question. The only thing I’ve read the past two years has been school-assigned.”

“What was your favorite one of those?” Ronan is trying to keep eye contact, but his gaze flickers to Adam’s lips.

Adam, who’s never missed a gesture like that in his life, grins. He leans in closer. “Probably… _Julius Caesar_?”

Ronan makes a vague noise.

“What? You didn’t like that one?”

“I’ve never read a book in my fucking life, much less one assigned by _Aglionby_.”

“Shut up,” Adam mumbles, laughing.

“ _Julius_ _Caesar_ was fine,” Ronan concedes. A beat of silence passes before he places a hand to Adam’s waist. It’s a careful touch, light as air. Adam puts a hand over his to let him know it’s okay; Ronan uses this to drag him closer, closing the final step against the counter (Ronan wishes he’d thought this through better). He ignores the slight dysfunctionality of their position and leans in to kiss him.

God, god, god, god, god, how did he get by so long without this?

Adam snakes his arms around the back of Ronan’s neck in an instant, and Ronan’s immediate reaction is to think he’s pretty sure he’d be alright if they never moved from there. Adam’s fingers pressed against his skin, his arms pulling him down. Ronan’s hands tighten at Adam’s hip.

The tips of Adam’s fingers brush along the inside of Ronan’s shirt at the neck line. He runs his tongue along Adam’s lower lip, the way Adam had done it this morning; his lips part against Ronan’s.

God. _God_.

Adam’s hand presses against the skin of his back, fingers splayed, and it feels like Adam might be standing on his tiptoes, though this does nothing to keep him back. Adam Parrish kisses like he’s been starved of it.

He breaks away with a sharp jerk of the head, hair falling into his face. Ronan pushes it back, fingers lingering. “Why are you sitting like this—?” Adam mumbles, shaking his head. He doesn’t give Ronan any time to respond before pulling their lips back together. Only for a moment, though. When he pulls back a second time, he looks quickly around the room, thoughtfully. “Here…” He puts a hand to Ronan’s chest and pushes him back farther. Ronan looks questioning, and Adam just says, “Against the wall, Lynch. Back up.”

Ronan just starts to say, “That’s not gonna help—” But then Adam is climbing up onto the counter with him. He nods lightly. “Okay, sure.”

Ronan starts to reach for Adam’s face, assuming he’s just come to sit next to him, but then Adam throws his leg over Ronan’s, straddling his lap. He puts his hands to Ronan’s chest and then pauses. “Is that okay?” Adam asks softly, noticing the indecipherable expression on his face.

As an answer, Ronan pulls him in for another kiss.

Adam’s palms press against Ronan’s chest then slide upwards, brushing along his neck, his shoulders, and once again sinking down the back of his shirt. Ronan, on the other hand, is having trouble even feeling his fingers. He tugs at Adam’s shirt and is almost surprised by the feeling of his skin against his hands. Adam makes the smallest of noises at the touch. He clenches his fists against Ronan’s back.

Adam sinks against Ronan, pulling their chests closer; Adam’s hips roll against Ronan’s, and he doesn’t gasp, but it’s a close thing. He pulls back abruptly, inhaling lowly but deeply. Adam looks about to apologize, but Ronan’s expression silences him. Ronan maintains one hand under Adam’s shirt, holding him where he is, and with his other, he grasps the side of Adam’s face. “It’s not that I’m not totally into that,” he breathes, “but I think the others might be waiting on us, and. Well.”

“Mm, yeah they probably are.” Adam sounds like he doesn’t care. The little shit.

Neither of them move.

“We should go,” Adam says after a second.

“Yes.”

However, Ronan’s hand is still on Adam’s face and he’ll be damned if he has to drop it before absolutely necessary. He uses it to pull Adam back towards him. This time, though, he presses his lips to Adam’s neck.

This was a mistake. If he’d known the way Adam’s breath would hitch when his tongue touched his skin, he would not have started this here or now. He presses kisses along his neck, and tugs at his shirt to leave them on his collarbone. _Jesus_ , he’d love to leave a mark. Another time, another time, he’ll have to wait. _God_.

They should tell their friends. Gansey would be all too happy to wait on lunch if it meant Ronan giving Adam hickeys in a closet. He knows he would. Gansey is a good friend.

But no. The game is more important. Truly.

Another day.

Christ. Ronan drops away, meeting Adam’s eyes again. He’s smiling. “Let’s go.”

Adam starts to pull his hands from Ronan’s back, but he’s dragging his fingers thoughtfully along his skin. Ronan raises an eyebrow. Adam says slowly, “I know tattoos don’t work this way, but it seems like I should be able to feel it.”

“Seems like you should, yeah.”

Adam’s smile widens, though he sighs a little. Reluctant to get down, he stalls by ghosting his thumb along Ronan’s collarbone, down his shoulder. His hand drops to his waist. Ronan watches him carefully. When Adam meets his eyes once again, he is surprised to see the soft way he’s staring.

He sits back then, and he climbs down to the floor. Ronan is down an instant later, shaking his head.

“Fucking hell, Parrish,” he mutters to himself. He sounds like he’s smiling, but he’s already ducking in front of Adam and out the door.  

“Took you long enough!” Noah exclaims when they appear in the kitchen. He has a treacherously knowing glint in his eye.

“Sorry, Adam’s really bad at laundry.”

“Stop slandering me…”

“It’s only slander if it’s a lie, and you know me.”

Gansey and Blue are sitting at the table already, Blue chipping away at some nail polish, apparently uninterested in Adam’s and Ronan’s banter, but Gansey. Gansey looks dangerously interested. Adam is suddenly very sure that there are no secrets that are kept from Gansey, but as soon as Noah starts dishing out the macaroni and cheese he’d made (Adam honestly doesn’t know how Noah got put in charge of cooking so often), Gansey relaxes into a more normal expression.

“Noah tells us you’re itching for another Go Fish game,” Ronan says to Gansey, leaning back in his chair.

“Yeah, Noah informed me of the same thing,” Gansey says amusedly, taking a bite of his food while eyeing Noah.

“Can’t help it if I know you better than you know yourself…” He shrugs.

 

* * *

 

 

Honestly, Adam hadn’t been entirely sure what Ronan had meant when he’d said he wanted to fuck with Gansey. But their Go Fish game cleared all that up. Because it wasn’t like it was _obvious_ what Ronan was doing—not for anyone else. In fact, it was terribly similar to how they’d been acting, even before this. But now Ronan wasn’t trying to be dismissive when his fingers brushed against Adam’s; he wasn’t worried that Adam would figure him out if he stared at him too long. Suddenly, the things they were doing were quite obvious to the two of them. Laughably obvious.

But the rest of their friends were still in the dark.

When Adam begrudgingly hands over his three sevens, Ronan’s fingers practically fucking _caress_ Adam’s; though Ronan hardly gives it a second glance. Adam finds it painfully difficult not to be impressed by his nonchalance. Of course, he’d noted it before: For a long time, Ronan was good at hiding his feelings. He had practice. Lacking this specific brand of practice, Adam feels his heart slamming into his ribcage every time Ronan’s fingers linger a little too long.

At one point, Noah has to snap at Ronan to get his attention. “Quit staring at Adam,” he says, and Ronan mumbles something unintelligible back.

That was a little bit too obvious. Ronan reels it back.

Throughout the game, Ronan asks Adam for cards only _slightly_ more often than anyone else. This is a careful balance. He chooses Adam just often enough that it’s noticeable, but not often enough that it’s blatant favoritism. Gansey looks like he wants to make a comment every time Adam’s name rolls off Ronan’s lips, and in response, there’s always a glint in Ronan’s eyes that dares him to say something about it. Gansey never does.

Yes, Adam is all too impressed by Ronan’s petty talents.

They make it through three consecutive games like this. Ronan sitting angled towards Adam, Gansey’s wary gaze on all of them, Noah’s occasional knowing smile, Blue eyeing Adam assessingly. It _feels_ obvious to Adam. It _feels_ like there’s something tangible in the air that no one is willing to bring up.

He struggles with the knowledge that maybe that feeling had always existed.

Noah doesn’t do as dreadfully as he had done last time they’d played, but he still doesn’t win. He’s trying to start up a fourth game when Ronan pushes himself to his feet and announces that he’s going downstairs to get a drink.

To no one’s surprise, Gansey tags along.

The look on Ronan’s face makes Adam suspect that that had been his intention.

“Are you going to do anything about Adam or are you just gonna keep doing—whatever it is you’re doing?” Gansey whispers in a hiss as they walk down the stairs.

Ronan makes a thoughtful noise. “I don’t know, Gansey.”

“What is there not to know?” They hit the bottom of the stairs, and Gansey sidles up next to Ronan, eyebrows high, eyes intense. “Because, I’ll tell you, he _deserves_ you. Adam needs—needs something, and he deserves you. You need to tell him.”

“Oh, cut that ‘deserving’ shit out.”

“He’s _into you_ , I know he is, come _on_.”

Ronan shrugs. He’s biting down a smirk. “It would be hard to maintain. Really fucking difficult.” In the kitchen, he manages to get out from under Gansey’s scrutiny by opening cupboards and poking around in the fridge. “It might not be… worth it.”

“God, who _are_ you?”

A sharp smile spreads over Ronan’s lips. “I’m sorry?”

Gansey seems to grow infuriated by the look on Ronan’s face. “Who are you? You’re just going to give up? That’s not you, Ronan.”

Ronan turns slowly to face Gansey, who is glowering, arms crossed, mouth turned down in anger. A bubble of joy bursts in Ronan’s chest, and he struggles to contain it. This is too fucking good. Gansey questioning who Ronan is as a person is more than he could have possibly hoped for when he imagined this. He had expected some exasperated, loudly whispered conversations or some annoyed text messages sent in rapid succession, but _this_. Righteous fury is a bonus. He answers coolly, “I’m more than a crush on Adam Parrish, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“You _know_ that’s not what I’m saying.”

“It sounds to me like that’s what you’re saying.”

Gansey gives a humorless laugh and presses his hands to his eyes. “Ronan.”

“Gansey.”

“Why won’t you just do this?”

Ronan purses his lips as he fills a glass with water. “It’s not exactly your business.” He knows this’ll piss Gansey off—in the way that Gansey gets pissed off, anyway.

Gansey has no verbal response. His gaze is ice; his hands clench and unclench at his sides. When Ronan sidesteps around him, he makes no move to stop him from leaving the kitchen. He makes no move to follow.

The shit-eating grin he’d been fighting back throughout the conversation finally finds its way onto his face as he makes his way back up the staircase. He eases the door open and then leans against the jamb. “I don’t think there’ll be another game, so you might wanna clean that up.” He takes a slow sip of his water and then points to Adam. “You. Come with me.”

“Did you do something to Gansey?” Adam questions weakly as he gets to his feet. The pleased expression on Ronan’s face and the words that had come out of his mouth didn’t really match up. “Is he still alive?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine.” He puts a hand on Adam’s shoulder as they exit the room. They don’t give Blue and Noah a backward glance.

Adam sighs. “That doesn’t exactly sound good…”

“Shh.”

“Don’t shush me.”

“My bad.”

They stroll silently down the hallway, Ronan ushering Adam along with a light touch. He tries to glance through the living room to the kitchen to see if Gansey is still standing there, but he can’t tell from here. Ronan stops at his salmon room and beckons Adam inside.

“What’d you do to Gansey?” Adam asks once the door is closed, voice flat.

“Oh, _Adam_ , he was so mad. So angry. Furious even.” He reaches for Adam’s hand.

Adam gives it to him but inquires skeptically, “Why are you smiling like that? You’re being weird.”

“Is this actually weird? Come on.” He pulls Adam closer to him. “He was mad that I wasn’t doing anything about you. Starting questioning _who I am_ , saying I wasn’t acting _like_ _myself_. Fucking splendid.”

“Ronan, we can’t—we can’t be making him _angry_.” Adam sounds vaguely appalled. “You can’t let him get mad at you, you haven’t actually—” Adam drops off, a disbelieving noise leaving his mouth.

“Yeah, I think he’s actually angry at me.” He’s still smiling, though.

“This is not what I thought you meant.”

“Me neither, Parrish. This is better, though.”

Adam looks like he doesn’t know how he feels about that. He just shakes his head in disbelief. “You should say sorry.”

“Like _hell_ I should say sorry.”

“Really!”

“I brought this on myself, my guy. He’s not mad at you, so don’t worry. It’s all good. I wanna see how long he’ll keep it up.”

“That’s… mean.”

“Nah.”

“But…”

“Okay, am I your secret boyfriend or is Gansey?”

Adam rolls his eyes. “It better not make the rest of this trip awkward.”

“Oh, please. He won’t let it. And anyway, if he can keep it up more than thirty minutes, I’ll be impressed enough to apologize.”

“Thirty? Really thirty? Because I’ll hold you to this.”

“Okay, maybe not thirty minutes. Two hours. Tops.”

Adam bites his lip, considering. He puts a hand to the back of Ronan’s neck and steps closer, “Fine. Two hours.”

“Why do you care?” Ronan’s voice is verging on whining. “It’s funny.”

“I just don’t want to be causing issues with Gansey. There’s no need for that.” He puts his other hand on Ronan’s shoulder, and then his hands slip down and he knits his fingers together at the base of Ronan’s skull. Ronan makes a face. He leans his face to one side, and Adam follows, their lips a mere breath apart, but Adam keeps talking. “Joke with him, sure, but I don’t want him actually angry at you.”

“Alright, cool, but quit talking about Gansey when I’m trying to make out with you.”

“You started it,” Adam mumbles.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not to brag, but i have the best readers in the world, thought y'all should know

As Ronan had predicted, Gansey doesn’t even make it ninety minutes, and when Ronan finds him dejectedly sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, _he’s_ the one who tries to do the apologizing. Ronan suppresses a smile and stops him with a flippant wave of his hand.

“Let’s not talk about it,” Ronan says.

“If that’s what you want,” Gansey replies.

Gansey refrains from saying that it’s such a waste, that Ronan’s throwing something away, that Ronan is being _stupid_ , and instead he just wordlessly offers him the package of Oreos he’d been eating out of. Ronan takes one without comment. They sit together in continued silence, Gansey looking more upset than he has any right to look, and it’s almost enough to make Ronan feel a little guilty. Very nearly—not quite.

He justifies his lack of guilt with the knowledge that he’s gonna be _in for it_ when Gansey actually does find out. The thought makes him want to cringe. He’ll be happy about it more than anything, but—he’ll be so mad all over again when he finds out he’s been sadly eating cookies for no actual reason.

With resignation, Gansey rests his head against the cabinet behind his head, gaze falling weakly on Ronan. “I hope you know I’m not actually angry with you. It would be irrational to get fed up with you over boys right now. Even if the boy is Adam Parrish.”

“Stop, stop, stop.” Ronan shakes his head. “It’s fine, I’m _really_ being such an asshole right now. You don’t even understand. I’m being such a shitty person right this moment.”

“Sure, sure,” he sighs, dismissive, “Whatever you say.”

“Really.”

Gansey rolls his eyes—a very un-Gansey-like gesture. “I’ll miss you a lot. Asshole or not.”

“Don’t start this now.”

“I _will_ miss you. And Adam will too. It won’t be the same.”

“ _Please_ don’t do this right now.”

Gansey purses his lips, quiet for little more than a second. “You’re going to have to start using your phone if we’re going to be living in different states. You might even have to get a Skype account or something.”

Mindlessly Ronan tugs at the bands on his wrist, lips curled in an indecipherable expression. Realizing Gansey isn’t going to give the subject up without some kind of a response, he sighs airily. “There will be no Skyping in the Lynch household, but I’ll try to send you an SMS or two.”

Gansey’s laughter breaks easily through whatever tension remained. “I’d like that.”

Once again, Gansey offers the package of cookies to Ronan, who takes a few more. The house around them is oddly quiet, and the late evening sun is casting long shadows through the windows. Gansey is wearing that look—the one that says he has an ocean of comments he’s holding back. Ronan ignores it, and when Gansey finally cracks, when he finally speaks, Ronan can’t even fight it.

“It’s just, it’s really hard not to bother you about Adam.”

“I’m figuring things out, Gansey.”

“You’ve had so _long_ to figure—”

“I thought we weren’t talking about this now?”

“I know, I just want you to know that I think it’s a good idea.”

“I don’t want to mess things up between me and Adam. We have such a good friendship.”

Ronan himself thinks the words sound sardonic coming out of his mouth, but he delivers the line without making a face, and it has the desired effect: Gansey looks like he wants to slam his head into the cabinetry behind him. “Sure. That’s reasonable.” However, his jaw is tight, his expression indifferent.

“We’ll see what happens.”

“Sure,” Gansey breathes, sliding off the countertop. He sounds resigned but not cruel, “Sure we will. I can’t wait.” He starts to leave the kitchen, but he pauses at the doorway. “Noah wanted to watch some movie tonight. Is that good with you?”

“Movies are always good with me.”

“Cool, I’ll ask Adam.”

“Oh, no, I’ll ask him.”

Gansey raises his eyebrows. “Okay.”

Ronan flashes him a smile and then waits for him to leave before wandering back to his room, where Adam is still sitting in the top corner of his bed. He’s scrolling through Ronan’s phone. Before he can even ask what he’s doing, Adam turns the screen around with a grin. “Did you know your entire camera roll is pictures of animals?”

“I am very aware, thank you, I worked hard for that. Gansey kept trying to take other pictures, so it’s really—whatever. That’s not importa—” Ronan seems to notice the picture on the screen for the first time and fumbles over what he’d been trying to say. “That cow, though, she’s named Blondie. If you were wondering.”

“I was,” Adam assures, turning the phone back around. He nods appreciatively. “And what happened with Gansey?”

A smirk appears on Ronan’s lips, which makes Adam stifle a groan. “ _He_ tried apologizing to _me_. So he’s fine now. He was being mopey about college, but that’s normal.” Ronan shoves his hands in his pockets. Then he pulls them back out. “No problems. We’re watching a movie tonight, if that’s good with you.”

“Sure, fine with me.”

“Awesome.”

Ronan drops heavily onto the bed, seating himself across from Adam, back against his footboard. He regards Adam carefully, unwavering yet—unsure? Inquisitive. Adam looks back easily.

“What’d you want to be when you were a kid?”

One of those looks that’s caught somewhere between happy and sad washes over Adam’s face. “Well, until I realized in middle school that it wasn’t gonna get me anywhere in life, I wanted to be a mechanic. Good thing I changed my mind, because it was not what I had hoped for.” He makes a face. “What did you want to do?”

“Lots of things. Astronaut. Bank robber. Artist. Marine biologist for almost the entirety of seventh grade. Firefighter.”

The weird look from before changes as Adam’s face lights up. “Did you draw?”

Ronan scoffs. “I tried. For a second. What’s your face look like that for?”

“I just wouldn’t have ever pictured you for the artistic type.”

Something about the way _artistic type_ rolls off Adam’s tongue, his accent getting caught on the _ar-_ , brings a glint of a smile to Ronan’s face. “I’m full of surprises.”

“Sure. You don’t draw anymore?”

“Not really. Surely you’d have noticed if I did.”

“Not if you’re full of surprises.”

“Fair enough. But no, I don’t do much.” He hesitates. “Not since the tattoo, anyway. No.”

“I—what?”

Ronan raises his eyebrows. “Did you know I have a tattoo, Parrish? It’s pretty cool, if you wanna see it some time.”

“Shut up, I mean, you designed that?”

“Who else?”

Adam’s lips are parted in wordless confusion. Then he rolls his eyes and pulls his expression together. “Honestly, I always imagined that you walked into a tattoo parlor and asked them to fuck you up with nine-hundred dollars’ worth of tattoo.”

Ronan nods approvingly. “That would have also turned out well. But no.”

“I would actually like to have another look at your tattoo some time, in light of this new information, however—” He glances at the clock on Ronan’s phone, “I think we should probably go find the others because it’s getting way late for dinner, and Gansey might come looking for us and explode if he finds us hanging out alone together in a bedroom again.” He says this all very matter-of-factly and then stands without waiting on a response from Ronan.

When they find Gansey in the living room, he points to Adam, all traces of his earlier melancholy vanished, and says, “Movie? Later? Yes?”

“Yes, why is this something we’re all voting on?” Adam asks with a laugh.

“Just checking. And for dinner: Pizza? Good?”

“Perfectly fine,” Adam says.

“Good, because Blue is already ordering it. I’m completely famished.”

 

* * *

 

 

Noah’s taste in movies is eclectic, to say the least. He has no specific genre that he likes; rather, his genre is _vaguely off-putting_ , which includes movies that are controversial, indie, just plain weird, or all of the above. He’s surprisingly good at keeping up with new movies, despite his refusal to listen to the music of the day. “Submarine” he liked, but he wasn’t gonna be bothered with anyone named Halsey. And that was just Noah.

Adam is curled in the corner of the sofa, having claimed the side with the L-bend, when the food is delivered; he was once again using Ronan’s phone, though now just scrolling through the internet. (When Adam had asked for his phone, Ronan had pulled it out of his pocket without so much as questioning him or even glancing at the device. Adam suspected this had less to do with his ardent interest in the game of War he had going with Noah and more to do with the fact that Gansey was watching them.)

Blue waltzes into the living room and places the boxes on the couch ottoman. It’s just a few feet from Adam, but he hardly has time to turn the phone’s screen off before everyone is crowded around the food in front of him; Adam just smiles and waits his turn.

Ronan, however, is directly in front of him, so he takes advantage of his position and reaches up to slide his phone into Ronan’s back pocket. Ronan only half peers over his shoulder, amused look on his face. When he turns all the way around, he’s handing a paper plate to Adam with a flourish.

“For you,” he says.

Adam almost scoffs, but he refrains. “Thank you, Ronan. How kind.”

A few moments later, Ronan collapses on the couch beside Adam, who idly wonders if Gansey has always paid so much attention to the two of them or if it’s a fairly new development, because. Yeah, he’s trying not to stare, but he isn’t very good at it. His eyes catch Adam’s, and Gansey flashes him an unreadable look. Adam smiles back.

Noah has hyped up his movie quite a bit, more even than usual, and though everyone tends towards skepticism when it comes to his choices in film, they happily let Noah turn off the lights and start the movie as soon as they’ve gotten themselves situated on the couch.

Adam hadn’t realized how close Ronan was, he hadn’t realized how dark the living room would be with the curtains drawn, he hadn’t counted on forgetting how to breathe when he notices Ronan glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Adam looks back. Ronan gives one of those laughs that’s inaudible—nothing more than an exhale and a smile.

They eat quickly; Ronan hands him another breadstick without Adam’s asking.

They’re forty minutes in when the food is gone, and Adam has decided this movie falls under _just plain weird_. He thinks there’s a plot somewhere, but it’s diluted and Adam is having trouble finding it.

The smallest movement comes from Ronan at Adam’s side. His eyes fall from the television. Ronan’s eyes are still glued to the screen, but his hand has slid from where it had been resting in his lap.

Adam, who had commandeered a blanket from the end of the couch just a minute ago, bites down on the grin suddenly threatening to overtake him. What a loser Ronan Lynch is, what an absolute nerd. Slowly Adam lets his hand drift downwards, and he tugs Ronan’s hand under his blanket by the thumb.

He takes Ronan’s hand gently, fingers drifting along his palm and then down to his fingertips. When he comes to a stop, Ronan’s fingers tug Adam’s into his; it’s a sharp motion, and he holds tight. Adam returns the strength. Ronan exhales longly, and eases his grip a moment later.

Throughout the rest of the movie, Ronan’s hand lingers in or around Adam’s. If Adam couldn’t decipher the movie before, he surely can’t do it with this kind of distraction. Ronan’s fingers draw shapes in the palm of his hand and send goosebumps up his arms.

Gansey could look over any second. Any glance longer than two seconds would end the charade and—

Adam internally curses Ronan for getting him worried about playing games with Gansey’s head. He gives Ronan’s hand a squeeze and sinks farther down, leaning his head against the back cushion. There’s still a few inches between his head and Ronan’s shoulder, a few inches he wish didn’t exist, but he accepts the fact. A few minutes later, Adam’s eyes drift closed, not because he’s in the least tired—it’s only just approaching nine o’clock—but rather because Noah’s artsy movie is boring him and he’s more interested in Ronan’s touch.

It’s a few minutes later when Adam feels Ronan tugging at the blanket with his free hand. Adam has half a mind to tell him to go get his own blanket, but when he cracks his eyes open, he realizes Ronan is just trying to hide their hands better. What a loser. He lets Ronan underneath his blanket and closes his eyes again.

Adam doesn’t notice when the movie ends; there hadn’t been a lot of dialogue, so with his closed eyes, the credits roll without him knowing. The next thing he’s aware of is the groaning of the couch as someone stands and then Blue’s voice.

“Look at this shit.” It’s whispered, but maintains a strong sense of incredulousness.

“I know.” Gansey’s voice is colorless.

“We should bring them some pillows,” Noah sighs. “Or just… push Adam’s head over a few inches.”

He really hadn’t been trying to pretend to be asleep, though he has to maintain the image now that they’ve noticed him. Suddenly he’s aware of how still Ronan’s hand is in his, and he wonders if Ronan actually did manage to fall asleep. He must have done. Adam squeezes Ronan’s hand ever so slightly; he gets the smallest of responses back.

It’s a few seconds before the murmured conversation of the other three fades out and they clear the room, and then he risks opening his eyes all the way. With the room empty, Adam scoots closer and drops his head to Ronan’s shoulder. “Are you awake?” he breathes.

“A little bit,” is Ronan’s murmured reply.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Nah, I’m up, I’m up.” He sighs and turns his head, taking in the way Adam is tucked against him. He leans over and catches Adam’s other hand in his. Adam peers up at him. “God,” Ronan whispers. “God, Adam.”

“Yes?” He sits back.

Ronan drops Adam’s hand, instead taking his face in his hand and pulling him in for a ragged, split-second kiss. When he breaks off and stands in one quick motion, he doesn’t have to say anything to get Adam to follow him out of the living room.

In the darkness of his bedroom, Ronan shudders under Adam’s hands when they sneak beneath the hem of his shirt; he lets Adam push him onto his back, lets him crawl on top of him, and he kisses him until Ronan can’t think of anything except how to get Adam never to leave.

So he finds himself feeling slightly disoriented when Adam pauses, lips lingering but half an inch above his. Adam’s eyes flick downwards for a split second; he tugs upwards at Ronan’s shirt.

“I really do want to look at your tattoo.”

“You’ve seen it before,” Ronan replies.

“Yeah, but it’s different now.”

“Sure, sure.”

He smiles easily and lets Adam pull his shirt over his head. It takes some maneuvering and some convincing (Ronan keeps trying to pull Adam back into kiss him), but eventually, in the dim light of a tiny lamp on the nightstand, Ronan is lying on his stomach, arms wrapped around a pillow, eyes closed as Adam runs a curious finger along the lines of ink on Ronan’s back.

“Everything you expected it to be?” he asks softly after a minute or two.

Adam hesitates, taking in the pictures and patterns, the optical illusions hidden therein. Looking at it now, nothing looks the way he remembered it, and yet everything staring back at him feels familiar. “It’s just. Everything in here… The trees. The skeletons. The ravens. It’s like you knew about everything that would happen to us before it happened.”

“Time is circular.” Ronan’s tone is faintly mocking, though he’s smiling.

Adam’s fingers drift along a curved, thorn-looking line that stretches past his shoulder blade and curls near his neck. The tattoo is beautiful, really. In the darkest, most fearsome of ways: A strangely poignant biography of their misadventures. And perhaps it’s simplistically beautiful as well. An honest work of art, done out of spite on Ronan’s part, but in no way suffering from lack of sincerity or care. A sigh leaves Adam’s lips, though he hadn’t been trying to do it. It’s a sad noise, but it gives way to a feeble laugh half a moment later. “You actually _could_ come to college and major in art.”

Ronan rolls back over, soliciting a small noise of disapproval from Adam, but he ignores it, opting instead to place a hand to the back of Adam’s neck and to pull him close. “Don’t talk about college.” His tone doesn’t leave room for dispute, and Adam doesn’t try.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

The two of them are still, Ronan’s hand remaining heavy on Adam’s neck, Adam with one hand, fingers spread on Ronan’s chest, the other propping him up and clutching at the sheets beside Ronan. Then Ronan sits up, his eyes dropping from Adam’s and falling to his own hand, which he moves from his neck down to his hip. He thumbs his way under the fabric and spreads his hand against Adam’s skin. Ronan doesn’t look to Adam’s eyes again until he has his hand at Adam’s chest. In a flicker of a moment, Adam reaches up and pulls his shirt off in answer.

The kiss is jarring, urgent. He practically falls into Ronan, whose hands move carefully but greedily, pressing to his chest, running down his spine. Ronan wraps an arm around his lower back, changing their situation with ease; Adam gives an airy exhale, his arms wrapped around Ronan’s neck as Ronan throws a leg over Adam’s lap and presses his lips to his jaw.

“Adam, I am so…” His lips brush the skin of his neck with each word, and he trails off with a shake of his head.

Adam grins easily.

For a moment, Ronan pulls up to look Adam in the eyes; Adam’s hands, at the base of Ronan’s neck, tighten slightly before dropping away. It’s a fleeting instant, both of them staring at each other in blithe silence. Ronan runs a hand through Adam’s hair.

“You need a haircut, Parrish.” Without waiting for response, he gives his hair a tug and then drops his lips once again to Adam’s neck.

His kisses run down from right below his jaw to the soft skin just above his collarbone. Here, he gives an experimental, sharp suck at his skin, and Adam’s chest rises abruptly, bumping against Ronan. Ronan sinks down closer and does it again, longer this time. Adam’s fingertips clutch at Ronan’s back, pulling him down until his chest is pressed against his. Ronan’s lips find a bit of skin half an inch farther along his collar bone, and Adam tightens his grip at Ronan’s back, willing him to stay like this as long as possible. Except—

“Wait, wait, wait,” Adam blurts out, despite himself.

Ronan pulls back instantly, though he doesn’t lift his head entirely. “Yeah?”

“I…” Adam suddenly feels very stupid. “It’s just…”

Ronan shifts his weight onto his elbow, sitting back to look Adam in the face. “I’m sorry, if you don’t want…”

“No, no, no, I just think. We would have trouble explaining it away to Gansey if there… were bruises on my neck.”

Ronan’s laughter is short. An unconcerned smile tugs at his lips as he puts a hand to the side of Adam’s face. “Whatever, fuck Gansey. It doesn’t matter, we’ll tell him the truth, or that you walked into a door, I don’t care.” He moves towards his neck once again but then hesitates, a thought coming to him. “Wait, you are okay with this, right?”

Adam raises his eyebrows slightly. “Yeah, totally.”

Ronan searches his face for signs of sincerity. “I just wanted to make sure that Gansey wasn’t just… an excuse to ask me to stop or…” He narrows his eyes interrogatively.

“No, most definitely not.” Adam returns the quizzical gaze.

“Okay. You can tell me to stop any time. If something’s not okay.”

“Of course.”

“Okay.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why are you saying all this?”

“Because it’s true,” Ronan says simply, voice hard. He parts his lips to continue but pauses. Finally, his voice drops when he says, “And like… I’m not going to bruise your skin unless you actually want that.”

It’s Adam’s turn to open his mouth and have no sound come out. Ronan is quiet, patient for possibly the first time in his life, while Adam fumbles for what to say. It takes him a moment, but eventually he manages a whispered, “No worries.”

Ronan nods slowly. “Okay.”

He drops his lips back to where he’d left off, and Adam folds his arms tightly around him, a feeble attempt at saying _Thank you, thank you, thank you_.


	11. Chapter 11

When they wake up the next morning, there’s rain pounding on the roof. It takes Adam a long second to come to himself, to realize where he is, and once he does he sits straight up. At the sudden movement, Ronan makes an irritated noise beside him, although Adam just scrambles to find Ronan’s phone, discarded on the floor beside the bed. Seven o’clock in the morning. Adam drops back to the mattress, content that there’s no risk of anyone coming to find them yet, and he pulls the blanket back over his head.

He reaches over, looking for Ronan’s hand, and when he finds it, Ronan makes a light humming noise, hardly audible over the noise of the storm outside. Ronan tugs Adam closer, which is a feat, considering neither of them are very interested in moving. A few minutes pass before Ronan sighs. He squeezes Adam’s hand.

“Why are you awake?” he mumbles.

“It just happened.” Adam pushes the covers away from his face with a frown.

“Mm.”

Then Adam groans and buries his face in his pillow, dropping Ronan’s hand so that he can fold his arms below the pillow. Ronan just looks amusedly on. Adam says something, but it’s unintelligible through the fabric.

“Come again?”

He turns his head with great effort. “I should go back to my r—” He sits up sharply for the second time, propped up on his forearms. He lifts his fingers to the left side of his neck. “How much did you…?” Ronan’s smirk is criminal, and he gives an exaggerated shrug. That’s enough of an answer. Adam nods shortly. “Then maybe it doesn’t matter.” He drops his head once again and closes his eyes. His eyes flick open again a second later. “On second thought.” Adam rolls over and grabs Ronan’s phone again, this time opening the camera.

He flinches when he first sees himself, an action that Ronan doesn’t miss and sends a pang of guilt through his stomach, despite knowing that Adam had wanted it. Ronan inches nearer. Adam presses feather-light fingertips to the darkened skin, and after his initial surprise, a slight smile appears at his lips. Most of it was low enough that it could probably actually be hidden by a t-shirt, but alas, not all of it. Gansey was gonna flip, no matter what he believed actually happened. But mostly he was smiling because—

“Never had bruises like this before.”

“I know,” Ronan says. His voice is flat, but the twinge of anger is hard to miss.

Adam puts the phone back on the ground and turns onto his side to face Ronan again. “I like that you’re concerned about me.”

“Everyone you know is concerned about you, idiot.”

Adam is quiet for a long minute. “I’m okay these days.”

“Good,” Ronan says. It’s a second before he continues, “It’s okay if you’re not.”

He considers. “I am. I’m okay.”

“Good,” he says again.

They lapse into silence, listening to the rain, the hum of the air conditioner. Adam idly runs his fingers over Ronan’s, his eyes staring at the wall over the bed, his mind somewhere else—his mind back in Henrietta. Ronan had witnessed more than any of the others what Adam endured back home. Having seen Ronan’s concern last night, the realization that Ronan also carries a weight from that day feels like a tangible thing in Adam’s chest.

“You’re thoughtful, you know.”

Ronan makes a distasteful noise.

Adam laughs lightly and draws closer to him. “You are. You’re nice to me.”

“Yeah, well. Don’t try to tell me _that_ ’s something you’ve never experienced before.”

“No,” he agrees and after a beat continues, “Gansey was nice to me long before you were.”

A dreadfully amused look crosses Ronan’s features. “I hated you.”

“I know! I know you did.”

“Good thing we got that sorted out.” His voice is disinterested as he rolls onto his back and presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and stifles a yawn.

Adam allows himself a silent, still moment before he pushes himself to a sitting position. Ronan casts him a questioning look. “I think I’m going back to my room,” Adam says in response, to which Ronan raises an eyebrow.

“You got a way around that?” His eyes flick downwards.

“Not really." Adam hesitates and bites down a smirk. "We can still get a laugh out of it, though.”

 

* * *

 

 

Gansey is sitting cross-legged on the bed, typing away at his phone when Blue wakes up. When she rolls over and sees this, she stretches up to swat at the device in his hands. He smiles and easily evades her sleepy reach for just long enough to finish typing the message to his mother before dropping the phone back to the nightstand.

“Good morning, Jane.”

Her _good morning_ is muffled as she nudges closer, her face still half in the pillow.

Gansey drops back, lying on his side to face her. A lazy grin touches her face when their eyes meet. She grabs his hand and scoots forward, her head merely a few inches from his.

“I’ve been thinking about Ronan and Adam,” Gansey starts.

Her eyes fly up to meet his. Blue bites back a scowl and a sarcastic response and instead elects to humor him. She sighs and raises her eyebrows. She sounds unsurprised when she returns, “Have you now?”

“I have. I’ve been wondering if maybe I should talk to Adam about the situation. I’m wondering if I should have _started_ with talking to Adam, but that’s neither here nor there. Would Adam cooperate, do you think?”

“I really don’t think he would.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I’ve already tried.”

“Beg pardon?”

“When we were first driving up here,” she says, dismissive of the slightly scandalized look that appears on Gansey’s face. “We gossiped about Ronan a couple times, but after a second, I gave up talking to him about it. He was being annoying and uncooperative, so.” She shrugs.

“ _Blue_.” His mouth opens and closes a few times without making any noise before he continues, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s was Adam’s and my thing,” she says defensively. Gansey looks abashed for half an instant before Blue laughs. “It was silly. I don’t know if I ever actually believed he’d do anything. Maybe he would if you talked to him, though.”

“Maybe,” he mumbles thoughtfully.

“Or maybe we should stop meddling.”

“Maybe.” This time he sounds in pain.

Blue presses her forefinger to the space between his eyebrows, where a crease had formed. For a second he seems perplexed. Then his expression softens, and she lets her fingers fall to the side of his face. “You’re a good friend, Gansey.” She says it softly, earnestly, as though he had asked a question.

He looks like he’s going to respond when there’s a knock at the door followed by Noah’s soft voice. Blue just gives his hand a squeeze.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a few hours later when Adam wakes up again and shuffles into the bathroom to take a shower. He gets caught up looking at his reflection in the mirror. Merely knowing that Ronan liked him had been good for his self-esteem all those months ago, and _this_ was—well. This is a small wonder. He wants to feel some sort of embarrassment, some sort of shame—that’s why people hide them, isn’t it? But he’s coming up blank in that department.

And when he’s out and dressed, he finds that he was right about the shirt covering most but not all of it. Still no shame. Instead he feels a warm sort of anticipation. It has the potential to be quite a morning.

It’s already ten o’clock, but when Adam wanders into the dining room, he finds two boxes of donuts on the table and Ronan and Noah talking in the kitchen.

“That’s my cue,” Noah says, standing. He walks out of the room, leaving it silent but for the still-falling rain and the drip of the coffee maker.

“Good morning again,” Ronan says. “We got breakfast.”

“I see that, thank you. Where’s Noah off to?”

“Just to get Blue and Gansey.”

“Okay, very good.” With that he steps over, takes Ronan’s face in his hands and kisses him lightly, longly. He doesn’t pull back right away when he hears the door open across the house, and lingers in his personal space even when he does break away. He smiles crookedly at how easy it is to put that dopey look on Ronan’s face; Ronan murmurs _Fuck you_ without even a smidgeon of conviction; Adam drifts back to the opposite side of the kitchen a few moments before the others appear at the doorway.

“Coffee?” Ronan asks Adam.

Adam just nods. Ronan hands him a mug, and Adam moves towards the dining room.

“Black?” Ronan questions.

Adam turns back with an unimpressed expression. “Of course.”

Ronan makes a face.

The others don’t complain when Ronan sits down and tells them to get their own damn coffee. Because they value their lives, they don’t try to point out his favoritism today. Adam pulls a knee up, folding it between his chest and the edge of the table. He drags one of the boxes from the center of the table and pokes at the options.

“So, it’s raining,” Gansey points out unnecessarily as he sits down between Blue and Noah.

“Yep,” Adam says just before taking a bite of a plain glazed donut. Gansey doesn’t reply right away, so Adam chews quickly and continues, “Have anything in mind?”

“Nope,” he says, eyes drifting down to his coffee, which he is stirring endlessly. “Do you?”

“Nope.”

“More movies,” Noah says hopefully. “More Clue. Go out and play in the rain.”

“I like all those ideas,” Blue says as she plucks a sprinkle donut from the box.

“More Truth or Dare,” Ronan adds. He sounds sort of like he’s joking, but there’s a twinge of something else in his voice, as though this itself is a dare, and it makes Adam look over at him with curiosity. Ronan brings his mug to his lips and smirks against the ceramic.

Gansey seems to hear the weird tone, too, or maybe he’s merely excited that Ronan made the suggestion, because he looks up from his coffee at this moment, wide grin on his face. “We can certainly do that. I always want to play Truth or Dare.” And the way Gansey says it, it sounds like a warning, and Adam realizes quite abruptly that, no, Gansey hadn’t heard what Adam had heard in Ronan’s voice. Gansey was responding with his own dare; the excitement in his voice sounded so much like _Are you sure about that_? it nearly made Adam laugh aloud. He takes another bite of his food to make sure he doesn’t slip up.

“We should like… drag all the blankets out here and sit on the floor,” Noah says. “Like indoor camping.”

“Better yet,” Blue counters, “put some of the blankets on the floor, and use the rest to make forts.”

Noah points to her. “Yes.”

Adam smiles faintly and drops his foot from his chair back down to the floor. He finishes his donut and reaches for the box to get another one. Gansey is saying something, and Adam doesn’t really hear it, but his attention is caught with the way Gansey’s voice falters and breaks off unexpectedly. Instinctively Adam glances his way.

It’s immediately clear that Gansey is looking at him. It’s a light gaze, all parted lips and ever so slightly narrowed eyes; his mind is whirring. It feels like he’s silent for a short eternity as Adam sets his food down and sits back in his seat, beckoning him to continue.

“Adam.”

“Yeah?”

“Are you… injured?”

That was sooner than Adam had expected. Adam takes too long to reply; Blue follows Gansey’s eyes and her mouth opens by the smallest degree.

“ _Adam_ ,” she says, packing the two syllables of his name with more meaning than he thought possible.

At last, his voice weakly breaks the air, “Oh, this?” His fingers flicker upwards, and he gives a thin laugh. “Yeah, it’s… a little embarrassing.”

Gansey takes just a split second too long to respond than would be natural. His voice is casual, but it’s forced. It’s the false, stiff politeness that he pulls out when talking to his mother’s friends. But here, the tone is all suspicion. “How so?”

“Well, I—I tripped.”

Very quickly Ronan raises his mug back to his lips.

Gansey raises his eyebrows: A quick action of genuine surprise. “Where?”

“The… the shower. I hit the edge of the bathtub.”

“Really.” There’s no hesitation here.

Adam feels like he should nod, he knows he would nod now if he were telling the truth, but he can’t bring himself to. He and Gansey just stare each other down, assessing, unmoving. Gansey turns his head slightly, though his eyes don’t move. A smile quirks at Adam’s lips. This is Adam’s dare, Adam’s dare for Gansey to challenge him.

Where Gansey’s gaze is blank, Blue’s is gawking. Her mug is half-raised to her lips, and her eyes are wide. Beside Gansey, Noah is grinning broadly, shaking his head. He puts his chin in his hands, eagerly watching in his unearthly silence.

At last, Gansey says slowly, “You’re lying. I think you’re lying.”

Ronan has yet to drop his cup from his mouth.

“I could have broken my neck, Gansey,” Adam says, doing his best to sound offended.

“If it helps, I heard him,” Ronan pipes up. “He made the most pitiful noise when he fell.”

“I did _not_.”

“No, he did. It was like…” Ronan clears his throat before making a high-pitched, oscillating noise. Adam thumps him on the shoulder, and Ronan cackles. “Really ridiculous.”

Gansey holds fast. “You’re _lying_.”

“ _He’s_ lying about me making that noise, but that’s all.”

The strangest quietness follows. Ronan has resumed steadily drinking his coffee, and Adam is smiling softly as he returns Gansey’s steadfast stare. Blue has dropped her mug very slowly back down to the tabletop, and now she’s leaned back, fingers touching her lips, which are turned up in a grin. Noah is looking like this is the most thrilling thing that’s ever happened to him. Gansey’s eyes gradually shift from Adam to Ronan.

“You’re lying,” he repeats, more forcefully. Before Adam or Ronan can even part their lips to form a reply, Gansey raises his voice, “ _You’re lying_! Holy shit, you guys are _lying_.” Gansey’s words are choked out by breathless laughter.

A moment later, the laughter spreads to Adam. He covers his face with his hands, propping his elbows on the table; distantly, Adam hears Gansey saying something else, Ronan scoffing, Noah saying something about _Finally_. He peers over at Gansey between his fingers. Gansey’s hand drops loudly to the table as the laughter subsides, and something else crosses his features.

“You guys _are_ lying, right?”

Adam nods mutely, still smiling.

Ronan answers, “Yes, he _actually_ fell into a goddamn doorknob.”

“Shut up,” Adam breathes, and he shakes his head.

No one seems to know what to say. Gansey is just trying to get his brain to catch up, to process what’s being said. He puts his hand over his mouth, eyes flicking between his two friends, his two friends who look terribly, inappropriately amused, and Adam has kiss marks all along his neck and _Ronan_ put them there because they’re—

“What?” he cries. “ _What_? What is happening? And since when? How long? What are you two doing? So my plan _did_ work? What am I—? Oh my god. Please tell me this is a new thing. Are you—”

“Just a few days, Gansey,” Adam says, sounding embarrassed.

“But that means—” Something dark flashes across his face, and he turns it on Ronan, “Yesterday! Ronan Lynch, you let me—you let me be angry at you, you were—oh my god. Oh my god.” Ronan shrugs. “I want to kill you. How long were you planning on hiding this?”

Adam and Ronan exchange a look. Ronan hums, considering, “Indefinitely?” Adam snorts. “Ideally, I think we might have waited until—what do you think, Adam? Until it was time to send out the wedding invitations?” Adam makes another scoffing noise, though this time he drops his face to hide the blush he’s _sure_ is appearing on his cheeks. He scrubs a hand across the back of his neck.

“No, but _really_ ,” Gansey insists.

Ronan waves a hand through the air. “Soon enough. We were playing games with you, but. Well. I had such ambition, so many good plans—we hadn’t even begun. Though we had to cut that off sooner than I’d hoped. There were other things I wanted to do more.”

Adam puts his hands over his face once again. Ronan smirks.

Blue makes an exaggerated gagging noise.

Ronan nods graciously. “I deserve that.”

“So you two are just. You’re just.” He motions between them, completely at a loss. “Now you’re just…?”

“It seems we are,” Adam says, glancing to Blue; she laughs.

 

* * *

 

 

That evening, Adam is standing at the door to the garage, back against the doorjamb, eyes peering out the window down the hall. The rain has settled into a fine mist, which is collecting in droplets along the glass and turning the streetlamps into hazy clouds of light against the dark sky. Adam hears Ronan’s voice drift from the other room, _Adam and I are going out_. Gansey says something lowly that Adam can’t make out. Ronan laughs. _I’ll have him back by midnight_. Their voices quiet down, and Ronan appears a minute or two later, keys dangling from his fingertips.

Adam is very aware of how happy he looks. It’s too simple a word for someone like Ronan, but the smile on his face is easy, his shoulders are relaxed, the look in his eyes is unworried, and _happy_ is so wonderfully all-encompassing.

As Ronan steps past him to open the door, his fingers brush against Adam’s waist.

Adam thinks he is happy, too.

They say nothing as they get into the car. It’s one of Blue’s CDs in the radio, and the song that comes up is soft and slow. For a moment, Ronan looks like he’s about to change it, but then he leaves it and puts the car in gear. Adam rests his forehead against the window.

Ronan and Adam are tired. It’s inching towards nine o’clock, and they’ve spent the whole day being bombarded with questions to which they didn’t have answers. Their friends were talking as though Adam and Ronan weren’t terribly new at this and—subconsciously—more than a little bit afraid. At one point, Adam had to disappear into the bathroom and breathe deeply into the crook of his elbow on the white-tiled floor. Their friends didn’t mean to be overbearing, of course. They couldn’t know that Adam and Ronan had very pointedly not been talking about anything deeper than their favorite colors.

Adam knew that he liked kissing Ronan. Adam knew that he cared about Ronan, and he knew that he cared about him in a way that was different from the rest of his friends. Adam knew that he wanted to keep this up. And Adam knew that Ronan made him happy.

What else was there?

Ronan’s fingers tap idly against the steering wheel. His eyes don’t stray from the road.

 _Let’s go out somewhere tonight, you and me_ , Ronan had whispered earlier. _I need away from the 20 Questions_.

Adam had breathed a relieved laugh. _God, yes, me too_. _One thing, though_.

 _Anything_.

_Let me pay. Okay?_

Ronan had sighed. He had said _anything_.

Adam had continued, his lips brushing against Ronan’s, _You can do it next time._

 _Of course_ , _Adam. Of course_. _Whatever you want_. Ronan hadn’t understood, but he’d complied anyway.

Ronan should be allowed to understand.

Adam pulls his eyes from the window and settles his gaze on Ronan. “When I lived with my parents…” Adam starts softly, carefully. Ronan glances Adam’s way at the first sound of his voice. Knowing that Ronan couldn’t have been following Adam’s train of thought makes it hard to continue, but he swallows the discomfort down. “My father would use the fact that he ‘provided for me’ as an excuse to do what he did.”

“Adam, you—you don’t have to explain.”

“I want you to understand.” And Adam’s voice is a whisper, but its weight is pronounced.

Ronan nods; his hands tighten at the wheel. “Please continue, then.”

Adam drops his eyes to his hands in his lap. “I know you guys are smart enough to have assumed that that happened. It’s textbook behavior on his part, it’s not—it’s not unique to me at all. I know. I knew what he was doing when he was doing it, I knew he was manipulating me, and I knew it wasn’t founded, I knew it for years, so it shouldn’t—it shouldn’t affect me like it does.

“But it does. Still. Even when I know, logically, that you and Gansey aren’t trying to own me when you give me things, my—my…” Adam breaks off here, searching for the way to describe it, “My survival instincts don’t let me allow it comfortably. I want you to know that I—I don’t know. That’s all. That’s it.”

“I’m sorry,” Ronan says, because it’s all he can manage. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Ronan shakes his head. “I’m sorry that’s how you grew up.”

“Nothing to do about it now,” Adam murmurs, fingering the hem of his shirt idly. “But I’m working on being better about it. I’m trying. I don’t want to feel this way forever. But for now it’s—yeah. I’m trying.”

“I’m glad for that,” Ronan says softly. “It’s not your fault you’re like that, though. We’re never upset with _you_.”

Adam nods listlessly. That’s something he’s heard many times, something his head knows is true, but feels in his chest like it’s more complicated than that.

“Adam.” Ronan’s voice is stern enough to get Adam to look back up at him. “It’s okay that you feel that way. It’s okay that you’re afraid. If someone, fucking, I don’t know, came up and broke your arm, no one would say you were wrong for saying that it hurt. You’ve got to get better, sure, you’re hurt, but no one’s gonna say that you aren’t healing fast enough, no one’s gonna complain about you having a goddamn cast on your arm, you know?” Ronan’s voice drops, and Adam doesn’t know whether he hates or is touched by the pain that he hears, “They’re only gonna do that if they don’t realize your arm’s broken.”

Adam sighs, thankful for the words but done talking about it and therefore unable to manifest any other reaction. He really is tired.

“Thank you for explaining,” Ronan continues at last. “Or trying to. I can’t… I can’t imagine.”

“No problem.” Adam musters a weak smile, which Ronan sees out of the corner of his eyes. “I’m so fucked up, you should at least know why.”

“You’re not.” His words are almost inaudible, and he reaches over to grab Adam’s hand, just for a second, before he has to put it back on the wheel. Ronan flicks on his turn signal with a bit too much vigor, and they pull into the parking lot of the coffee shop without further word. They pull into a parking spot near the door, but Ronan doesn’t take the keys out, and neither of them make any moves to open the doors.

“Can we stay in the car?” Adam asks, warily surveying the brightly lit interior through the windows and weighing it against the exhaustion he feels.

“That sounds good. I’ll get it.” He undoes his seatbelt, and Adam hands him a worn, red debit card. Ronan hesitates for the briefest of moments but takes it without a word. He opens his door, and as he goes to stand, Adam grabs him by the shirt.

“If you order a small, I’ll skin you alive,” he says. “Get whatever you’d normally get.”

And Ronan just sighs, but he smiles and pries Adam’s hand away. “Sure thing.”

“Thanks, Ronan.”

Left alone in the dark car, Adam draws his feet up to the seat, sitting cross-legged. He leans his head back against the headrest and watches as Ronan disappears inside. Blue’s CD is still spilling quietly out of the stereo. Adam puts the window down and lets his arm hang out into the damp air.

He thinks he feels better, having spoken about it.

He’s pretty sure he does.

It takes Ronan a little longer than Adam had imagined it would, but it’s alright. He thinks he probably needed the extra time to catch his breath, though when Ronan does get back to the car, Adam feels almost relieved to see him. Ronan hands him his drink first, then his card, and then a small paper bag.

“I even bought you a petit-four.”

This brings Adam an unreasonable amount of joy, and he peers into the bag with a smile. “You didn’t want one also?”

“Nah, I sure didn’t.”

“Sure, okay. Thank you.”

Ronan closes the door once again, and the lights fade to darkness a moment thereafter. Adam rolls the window back up and closes his hands tightly around the paper cup.

“It’s too bad,” Adam says, removing the lid, “that I had to break up with my secret boyfriend and get a plain-old, normal boyfriend.”

“’Secret boyfriend’ was a lot more my style, I’ll admit.”

Adam smiles.

There isn’t a lot of speaking as the night goes on. The coffee makes Adam feel less physically tired, but his mental state is another story. Ronan takes Adam’s hand, and that’s enough. Adam turns sideways in his seat and draws his knees to his chest, his drink in his right hand, the left resting on the console with Ronan’s. It is more than enough.

Adam knows that this was the right thing to do. Adam knows that he is safe with Ronan.

The thought startles him into a small laugh. Ronan looks at him curiously.

That Ronan should be his _safe_ is certainly laughable. Ronan, who shouts _Danger!_ to everyone else. Ronan, the snake of the Lynch household. Ronan, who gets into physical fights without a second thought. Ronan, who cradles baby birds to his chest and feels for mice’s tiny heartbeats and asks for Adam’s permission to give him hickeys.

“I like you, Ronan,” is all he says, and that is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as usual, i am endlessly appreciative of the attention y'all give me, so ridiculously appreciative
> 
> because someone asked on tumblr: this is drawing to a close soon, sadly  
> there will be at _least_ two more chapters after this, though, so we're not there yet (':
> 
> love u guyz


	12. Chapter 12

Their summer passes.

Adam’s and Ronan’s relationship falls all-too-quickly into the realm of banality. Gansey no longer gasps every time he sees them holding hands; Blue no longer tries to take a picture every time they so much as glance at each other; Adam and Ronan only sigh when Noah pops up unexpectedly. Hardly more than a week was all it took for the others to get used to the idea of Adam-and-Ronan, Ronan-and-Adam.

And they are _too_ grateful for this. If Ronan had caught Gansey staring from across the room one more time, there was no telling what would have happened. The middle finger was losing its effect and violence was tentatively out of the question, so the options were dwindling rapidly.

Their final week of vacation arrives far too swiftly and without warning. They spend their days sprawled in the sand or swimming in the ocean. Adam isn’t all that into swimming yet, but he does enjoy the practical excuse to hold Ronan’s hand. Ronan pretends to be irritated— _Did I not teach you well enough_?—but the charade is none too convincing for anyone.

Noah dredges up more movies from the depths of nowhere; Blue drags them all to Wal-Mart at two in the morning when they run out of snacks during an all-nighter they’d been planning for days; Gansey plans things to do constantly, so that they won’t all sit around the house staring at each other; Ronan keeps Gansey’s ideas from getting out-of-hand (he shoots down Gansey’s suggestion to rent a sailboat, which he was pretty sure there was no legal way for Gansey to do); and then there’s Adam. Adam keeps everyone sane. He always seems to know when everyone needs a break from each other, and everyone else always seems to know what Adam himself wants.

It works out well, their little kingdom on the seashore.

After two or more years of running full speed, this feels like a pause. Less like a conclusion, more like a moment of limbo between two halves of their lives. They’d had more than their fair share of magic, and it was time for a shift to something more ordinary.

And for them, ordinary feels a little bit like magic these days.

Their last night at the beach house, Adam gives a perfunctory knock to Ronan’s door and then lets himself in. Ronan, lying sprawled across his bed, glances towards the door without much concern, and then he sticks his tongue out. Probably because of the phone he has pressed to his ear. Adam makes a vague _Should I go?_ gesture, but Ronan shakes his head quickly and motions for Adam to come in. He shuts the door noiselessly and crosses the bedroom, eying the corner of the room, where Ronan’s suitcase is still open and clothes are lying haphazardly thereabout.

“Is he now?” Ronan asks, rolling his eyes a little as Adam sits down at the head of the bed. At Adam’s questioning look, he mouths _Matthew_. “Uh huh.”

Ronan props himself up, half sitting, and looks to Adam. His eyes are assessing, much more curious than they’d been a moment ago when Adam first walked in, as though he’s just gotten an idea and is now considering it.

“No, I understand,” he says into the phone, “I agree.”

Ronan tugs at the bottom of Adam’s shirt. He looks down at Ronan, eyebrow raised, though he doesn’t move. Ronan gives an exaggerated sigh—rather, he goes through the motions of sighing, as he doesn’t make a noise. He sits up, puts a hand to the side of Adam’s face, and leans to whisper in his ear.

“He’s been talking for an hour,” he says, words hardly more than air. Then he speaks again at normal volume into the phone, “No fucking way.” Adam makes a slight face and resists the urge to pull his ear away from the volume. Ronan seems to notice his mistake, and he mouths _Sorry_ before pressing a kiss to the edge of Adam’s mouth.

“Did he really?” Ronan murmurs, sliding a hand along the back of Adam’s neck and sitting up straighter. “That’s stupid.” Ronan tugs at Adam’s hair a little, to which Adam gives a longsuffering look.

“What are you doing?” he whispers. Ronan ignores the question and then puts a hand to Adam’s knees, apparently wanting him to flatten them. Adam complies, mostly because he’s interested in where Ronan’s going with this. He bites his lower lip when Ronan throws a leg over Adam’s lap and grins easily.

“I’m sorry _what_? Repeat that.” Ronan listens intently, tracing his fingers along Adam’s chest. “No, Matthew.” Ronan slips his hand under Adam’s shirt and Adam does his best to look exasperated as Ronan leans in to drag a kiss along his jaw. It’s only a second later that he sits back sharply. “He said _what_ to _who_? No way.” He looks to Adam and mouths _High school drama_.

Adam just shakes his head in disbelief. “You need to hang up the phone!” Adam breathes, grinning at how ridiculous this is.

Ronan pulls the phone just a few inches from his face and returns, “I can’t say no to him!” Then, “No, fuck Joshua, tell him to find his own friends.” Pause. “Uh huh.”

“But you _can_ say no to me?” Adam asks, feigning offense.

“No! I can’t! That’s why we’re in this situation!” Ronan drops closer, pulling their lips together. Break away. Phone back to his ear: “I don’t care what he said, fuck the guy.”

“This is absurd.”

Ronan shrugs. _What can you do_? “No, you listen to me. Don’t be friends with assholes.”

“You need to stop this,” Adam insists, though he’s smiling and so his stern tone is lost on Ronan.

“No way,” he replies silently to Adam, shaking his head. And then to Matthew: “Okay, but none of _my_ friends are assholes, Matthew. Come on now.”

Whatever Matthew is saying now deters Ronan’s attention more fully from Adam. He’s staring off to the side, quizzical look pulling at his features. He opens his mouth to retort, but closes it tightly a moment later. He beats his fingers against the back of the phone rhythmically. Ronan sits back slightly and casts an apologetic look Adam’s way, as though Adam were going to be upset with him or something, when Adam had been the one to interrupt their conversation in the first place. Then the thoughtful spell breaks, and Ronan snaps, “No, no, no are you even hearing what I’m saying? Tell him to fuck off.”

Ronan turns his attention back to Adam. “He’s being idiotic,” Ronan complains quietly, pulling the phone from his mouth once again. “How do I get him to leave?”

“Say you have to go?” Adam says, as though it were that obvious.

Ronan slaps the phone back to his ear. “No, Matthew, no.” _Help_ , Ronan pleads soundlessly.

Adam can’t think of anything to say; he can’t help him—there’s nothing Adam can do. All Ronan needs to do is say that something’s come up, but if he won’t listen to Adam’s simple advice in that direction, well. Then he has no more helpful suggestions to offer. Or maybe—

Adam wraps an arm around Ronan’s lower back, drawing him closer; Ronan makes a vague noise that could be in response to either Matthew or him. Adam presses his fingertips to Ronan’s neck and then lowers a kiss to the skin between his spread fingers. Ronan runs his hand through Adam’s hair and bites down a breath.

“Why are you so worried about them?” Ronan asks, voice sharp but sounding significantly weaker than a moment ago.

Adam’s hand falls away, but his lips remain. He drags his fingers down Ronan’s chest and settles them at his hips. He dips ever so slightly into the waistline of his jeans. Adam hadn’t been listening to whatever Ronan was saying to Matthew just then, but he’s very aware of the way Ronan’s voice falters and the way his words break off. Adam smiles against his skin. Maybe he was interrupted by Matthew, because he picks up speaking again a second later—but maybe not. Adam parts his lips wider against the skin of his neck. Ronan says something shortly to Matthew.

“Just tell him you need to go,” Adam murmurs, pulling back to peer up at Ronan.

For a long moment, Ronan just stares at Adam, pained expression on his face. Very clearly he is weighing his options for getting out of this phone conversation, and Adam is honestly surprised by Ronan’s restraint. The fact that he isn’t just hanging up the phone is unheard of. He’s certainly hung up on Adam and Gansey and even Noah often enough.

Matthew is an anomaly.

With an unimpressed frown pulling at Adam’s mouth, he cocks his head to the side. He leans in closer to Ronan, leans in until their lips are separated by millimeters.

“Tell him you’re busy,” Adam breathes, so quietly it’s possible that Ronan can’t even hear him. He gets what he’s saying, though. “Hang up the phone.”

For a split second, Ronan looks like he’s about to argue with Adam or maybe just say something snappy to Matthew, but then Adam is dragging his hands away from Ronan’s waist. With the way Ronan is positioned—Adam beneath him, their faces so near each other—Ronan can’t see Adam’s hands. He tenses in anticipation for the return of his touch.

“That’s not what you said earlier,” Ronan says into the phone, eyes fixed on Adam’s, “You—” The noise Ronan makes now is definitely not in response to Matthew. Adam has assumed a face of innocence, despite the easy way his hands are dragging along the inseam of Ronan’s jeans. Ronan takes a ragged breath and says hastily, words running into each other, “Don’t do anything stupid, Matthew, I need to go now, but tell that guy to go fuck himself, love you, see you soon, goodbye.”

The phone drops out of Ronan’s hand and Adam gives a smug smile. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Ronan’s stare is steady, and he doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Adam presses his fingertips to the center of his chest and guides him backwards. Once he’s out from underneath Ronan, Adam pushes Ronan onto his back, effectively knocking the trapped breath from his lungs.

Adam is on him in a second, lips parted against his, hands forcing his shirt up. Ronan is familiar with the feeling of Adam’s kisses derailing his thoughts; he’s familiar with the way Adam’s hands feel curled against his bare chest; and although pulling Adam’s shirt off still sends a shock of excitement against his ribs, these movements are familiar, too. Adam kisses Ronan as though he knows how easy it is to take him apart. He’s almost smug in the careful way he drags his teeth across Ronan’s lip, verging on arrogant when he lets his fingers graze down the side of his face. Yes, Ronan likes to think Adam is well-known to him by now. What Ronan had no precedent for, however, was the way Adam’s fingers would feel splayed across the skin just below his navel. He sucks in a silent breath and knots his fingers more tightly into Adam’s hair.

Adam tears his lips from Ronan’s, but he doesn’t drift so far that he can’t press their foreheads together. Adam has one hand at the base of Ronan’s neck, thumb trailing idle circles against his skin, and the other still rests precariously close to Ronan’s waistline. Adam’s lip quirks. He thumbs at the button on Ronan’s jeans.

It’s only been a couple weeks, but Adam has established himself as the one who is constantly getting them into trouble in this relationship. Ronan had begun it with his inability to keep his mouth off Adam’s neck, holding hands beneath the blanket, sure, but the more time passes, the more Adam is the one who steals kisses whenever the others’ heads are turned. Part of it is that he enjoys how surprised Ronan always looks, part of it is that he feels like there’s lost time to make up for, and part of it is just that he is just entirely too far gone, entirely too quickly. Ronan is all too happy to comply, but, at the root, it’s still always Adam’s fault when they get walked in on with an _I was only gone for thirty seconds, can you guys chill for one instant?_

Always.

So it’s only logical that Adam is the first one to let his fingers drift lower and prod in silent question. Ronan makes a low sound, and Adam tugs at the button on his jeans experimentally. Ronan doesn’t offer any objections so Adam mumbles, “Yes?” against his mouth.

Ronan has a lazy smile on his face when he pulls back an inch. “What is it you want, exactly?”

Adam parts his lips to answer, but in lieu of saying anything, he sinks back and presses a kiss to the center of his chest and then another one, lower. Then he peers up at Ronan from under his eyelashes, smiling lopsidedly, eyebrows up.

And Ronan can give barely more than a ragged laugh. “Knock yourself out,” he says.

Adam resists rolling his eyes, mostly because he hears the breathlessness in Ronan’s voice, but it’s still a near thing.

When Adam had showed up at Ronan’s door, he’d had no plans of sucking his dick, honestly, but it wouldn’t exactly be truthful to say he hadn’t yet thought about it. No, that would definitely be an untruth on his part. And he didn’t entirely know what he was doing, although he knew Ronan must know that anyway, so now was a good a time as any.

Adam sucks a kiss along his hip bone, and Ronan breathes a flat, “Oh my god.”

And he’d needed to take drastic measures to get Ronan away from Matthew.

The opportunity was too well presented.

He grins.

It’s different from kissing. Everything is different, starting with the way Ronan’s breath will sound sharply through the air, only to cut out when he clamps his teeth down on his lip; with the way his hands can’t seem to rest on any one spot, clutching at Adam’s hair, the comforter, the back of his own neck; and ending with the taste in his mouth that Ronan kisses away moments later.

For all of about five minutes, Adam is allowed to feel more than a little pleased with himself: Ronan is staring at Adam like he is the most incredible boy he’s ever seen and he needs a second to catch his breath. He drops more kisses along Ronan’s abdomen, his chest, his neck, and smiles at the light way that Ronan wraps his arms around Adam’s neck or drifts his hands down his sides.

Five minutes, though, maybe six—that’s as long as that lasts. Because then Ronan is pulling his boxers back on and dragging Adam closer to him, only to roll to the side a moment later and lower him to his back. Adam falls weak under Ronan’s touch and any smugness he felt before melts away as Ronan undoes him with such ease it should be criminal.

And when Ronan’s mouth finds his again, Adam closes his arms so tightly around Ronan’s neck that he wonders if he’ll ever let go. He holds on like it’s the only thing keeping him together, mostly because it is the only thing he can currently focus on. And even when Ronan draws his lips back a few minutes later, Adam loosens his arms but doesn’t drop them.

Ronan seems to be studying him, eyes soft, expression looking something like wondrous—though there’s something else there that Adam can’t place. He lets his hands drift along the back of Ronan’s head and then down his spine; but then he wraps them back around Ronan and pulls him down, so that they’re lying on their sides facing each other. A flicker of a smile touches Ronan’s lips, but the funny expression is still there. He doesn’t protest when Adam draws away in order to pull himself half-dressed again; Ronan stretches his arms over his head and turns around so that he can drop down to a pillow. Adam follows suit, though as he turns, he notices Ronan’s suitcase again, and he shakes his head.

“We’re leaving tomorrow morning, you know,” he says with a light smile.

“It’ll get done,” Ronan returns evasively.

Adam drops down beside him and pulls the comforter over him. He sinks down until the blanket is up to his neck, and Ronan peers at him at an angle. It’s a second before he joins him under the covers and turns on his side to face him straight-on. His expression is knotted, more troubled now than anything else. Adam’s stomach churns.

“Are you… okay? Did I do something wrong?”

The look on his face lightens in an instant. “No, fuck, no, you’re fucking amazing, I’m sorry.” He smiles then and drags his face to his so he can kiss him again, “Sorry, I was—thinking about something else.”

“What?” Adam rests his hand on the one of Ronan’s that’s cupped against the side of his face.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

He has half a mind to argue, but he lets it go. “Okay.”

Ronan kisses him again. The covers get caught between their legs; Ronan’s elbow gets knocked into Adam’s side. Ronan’s skin is a pleasant warmth against his, from his fingertips, his lips, his chest. Ronan kisses him until his lips feel slightly dissociated from the rest of his body, half-numb, half-buzzing. Even when Adam feels tiredness pulling at the edge of his consciousness, he doesn’t have it in him to pull away from Ronan. And Ronan is equally as unwilling to stop. But when Ronan eventually does manage to break it off, it isn’t drowsiness that’s gotten to him. He sinks back to his side, troubled air once again pulling at his features. Adam is about to ask again, and this time he isn’t going to let Ronan out of answering, but Ronan begins to speak before he can inquire.

“It’s just…” His eyes glance upwards, towards a corner of the ceiling. “Being here. Away from home. It’s so goddamn far away from normal life, isn’t it?”

“Kind of, I guess.”

“Shit is so different out here.”

“I mean… sort of. But why?”

Ronan takes a long time to answer. He allows Adam’s words to hang in the air—not as though they were significant, but as though the coming words will be. He drops his eyes meaningfully back to Adam’s. Then he says cautiously, “Maybe you’ll decide you liked this more as a dream.”

“No,” Adam says without missing a beat. “No, I like this better as a real thing.”

Ronan seems rendered speechless, though whether it’s from Adam’s lack of hesitation, the words he spoke, the tone in his voice, or just some combination of all three, Adam isn’t entirely sure. He looks like he wants to be hopeful, but his voice drops when he says, “I’m just saying. It’s okay if you change your mind. I mean—it wouldn’t be okay, I’d be fucking, I don’t know, but—shit, I just. Maybe you do. And. You might. Things might change when you’re at college.”

“Ronan… I don’t want to do this…”

“You’re leaving for college in two weeks. We said we’d discuss this.”

He blinks. “Okay,” Adam says, tone shifting to something more collected, “Let’s discuss this.” He props his head up with his hand and looks expectantly at Ronan. “College. You and me.”

“I can’t start,” Ronan whispers. “You tell me.”

Adam’s mind spins, looking for what Ronan needs to hear, scrambling for what needs to be said. “I still want to be your boyfriend. I’ll talk to you all the time. We’ll visit whenever we can. You can visit us whenever you want. I can always make time and room for you. I’m really good at making time for things that are important to me.” Adam gives a smile, looking a little embarrassed but earnest nonetheless. “I know it’s not ideal timing. We can keep this up, though.”

A smaller smile reaches Ronan’s lips, but it’s a tired gesture, and there’s still something dark across his face. “Okay.” He reaches up to run a thumb over Adam’s cheek and then settles on resting his hand at the side of his face once again. Something else is bothering him, that much is obvious to Adam, though he doesn’t want to push. However, it only takes a minute for Ronan to confirm the suspicion with what he says next, “But you’re really real?” And the question is so quiet that Adam feels it more than he hears it. It’s a twist in his gut that makes him ache. He thought they’d covered that back at the beginning.

“Yeah. Yeah, Ronan, I’m really real.” The ache seeps into what he says, dragging his voice down and making his words come out sounding choked.

“You said you liked me.”

“I like you,” he confirms, nodding. “Of course.”

Ronan doesn’t have a verbal response. All he can do is stare.

“I’m not a dream. I won’t ever be a dream,” Adam continues. His voice shifts to worried. “I—I thought you said you always knew the difference.”

It looks like Ronan isn’t going to answer again, but after a few moments of heavy silence, he weakly says, “I’ve dreamt about you a lot. That’s all.”

Adam pulls his hand into his, catching their fingers tightly together. He doesn’t know what else to say so he pulls him back over to kiss him again, and then again and once more after that. And though Adam whispers _I swear to God, I’m real, I’m real, I’m real_ against his lips, when he catches a glimpse of Ronan’s face again, it still looks uneasy. Adam takes his face between his hands and leans over him. “What else? What else, Ronan?”

Ronan tries to look away, but Adam’s hands hold him where he is. He settles for glancing across the room. “I’ll believe you if you say you’re real, I guess,” he looks back just long enough to cast him a weary smile, but then his eyes are somewhere else once again. “I’ll try, anyway. But I’m not allowed to say what else, unfortunately. It’d be shitty of me.”

“It couldn’t be shitty,” Adam assures. In a quick mental assessment, he can’t think of anything Ronan could say that would bother him right this moment. “What is it?”

It’s an eternity before Ronan drags his eyes back to Adam. “I don’t want you to go.”

An instant passes before Adam realizes that was what was bothering him. He swallows hard. “I—” he drops off, knowing he can’t return the statement with an _either_ tacked on the end. They both know it. It sends a pang of something through Adam’s chest. But then he collects himself and whispers, “I don’t want to miss you.”

Ronan’s eyes are downcast now. “I don’t want you to go,” he repeats. “You’re doing what you’ve always wanted and here I am just— ” He drops to a whisper, words spoken so quietly they barely even exist, “I just want you to be with me. How fucked up is that?”

Adam considers Ronan for an extended moment, knot in his throat. “Say it again.”

Ronan’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Say it again.”

“I don’t want you to go?”

Adam gives the smallest motion of a nod.

Ronan opens his mouth, though it takes him a moment to get it out this time. His words break from his lips like a confession, “I don’t want you to go.”

His eyes drift shut, and Ronan says it again. Ronan gathers him in his arms, pulling him against him, and his words grow more desperate the more he says it, and against his skin Ronan’s fingers grip more tightly, ever more tightly. Adam buries his face in Ronan’s neck, he breathes deep, and he bites down every complaint he wants to utter, he lets his frustration out by feeling Ronan’s. _I don’t want you to go_. _Please don’t go_.

 _I wish it had been different_ , Adam wants to say. But that’s not entirely true.

 _I wish it could be easier_. That one is true, but not exactly right.

 _I wish it didn’t have to hurt_.

Ronan is letting Adam in in a way that would make Adam feel guilty if it didn’t feel so genuine, like Ronan wanted it. Four weeks ago it had been what Adam had feared, the overflowing nature of Ronan’s emotions, the way they take hold of him so definitively and completely. But now, in the middle of it, it isn’t overwhelming or intimidating. It’s honest. It’s so fucking honest, and how could he ever have dreaded Ronan’s candor?

 And it’s a long time before it’s quiet again, a long time before Ronan withdraws himself, and when they do lapse into silence, it’s a comfortable one, born out of catharsis rather than emptiness. Ronan covers his eyes, elbows towards the ceiling, and the two of them remain wordless.

When at last Ronan drops his hands from his face, he looks over to Adam with a smile. “I’m fucking proud of you, though. Like, you’re a lame-ass nerd, but you know, that’s what some of us want in life. It’s cool that you’re achieving your dorky dreams.”

Adam laughs and shakes his head. “Awesome that _you’ve_ achieved _your_ goal of barely graduating high school and that now you’re surely moving on to bigger and better acts of delinquent-ism.”

Ronan’s laughter is a sharp but sincere noise. He gives an empty sigh, tracing a hand along Adam’s shoulder. “Yeah, damn straight,” Ronan murmurs, smirking, “ _Semper ad meliora_ , I guess.”


	13. Epilogue

Ronan makes excellent use of the US Postal Service during Adam’s first months at college. A mere day after Adam gave Ronan his address, he found a bright blue envelope waiting in his mailbox. It contained two things. The first was a list in Ronan’s slanted handwriting titled, _Things You’ve Missed_. It included _a bird landed on my windowsill and Chainsaw nearly lost her goddamn mind_ ; _your old landlady from St. Agnes talked to me for 30 minutes trying to get me to come on a mission trip to Guatemala_ ; _think I accidentally scared off a new girlfriend of Matthew’s but she was Boring_ ; _made my bed yesterday. not today but yesterday I did_ ; _Declan stopped by and didn’t make himself look like a total ass_ ; _I dreamed up a thermometer that’s always wrong_ ; _Noah set the microwave on fire (don’t tell Gansey)_.

The second thing in the blue envelope was a collage made with what looked like gum wrappers. It seemed to resemble flowers, but at some angles it looked more like they might be trees, and in some lights they were butterflies. Noah’s loopy signature was tucked in the bottom corner.

Things arrive in Adam’s mailbox weekly. Sometimes it’s just once a week, sometimes there’s something nearly every day. Occasionally Noah has slipped something inside too, and occasionally the envelopes contain only a few lines from Ronan and nothing else.

 _Monmouth is too quiet around here without Gansey always going on about something_. _Living at home seems wrong without Dad_. _Mom is well, but it’s different_. _Even the stupid church feels weird knowing you’re not upstairs_. _Does your dorm feel like home_? _I’m having trouble_. _I’ll skype you later_.

Sometimes they make Adam’s chest tight.

_You should SEE the kind of shit Noah gets into when he doesn’t have you guys to stop him holy shit Adam. This kid has no shame, and I do NOT have it in me to talk him out of doing stupid shit, you know me: I’m encouraging it. I’m not going to put everything he does in writing, Gansey might go crazy, so grab his phone and call me when you get this jesus fuck_

And sometimes they just make him smile.

One time the envelope in his box was simply full-to-overflowing with pressed flowers with a messy note on the inside flap of the envelope: _ronan DREAMED THESE i just pressed them in some old book gansey left behind(: he’s doing well today –noah_

Once there was a page written for Adam and a page written for Gansey. _I never got Gansey’s box number, so give this to him, would you_? Gansey had smiled for hours after that.

The first week of September, Adam received something a little different. The envelope contained no letter, just an odd object and an orange sticky note. _hang on to this for me_. The envelope hadn’t been bulky, but inside was what looked like a rock. It was slate grey, though when the light caught it, purples and greens reflected back. Ovular, sleek, and smooth as glass, it fit comfortably in Adam’s palm. Looking at it, it didn’t seem as though it should be as light as it was. The oddest thing was how cold it was, even after Adam had been turning it over in his hands for a few minutes. It was a dream object for sure, but why Ronan sent it to him, he couldn’t fathom. He looked again for an explanation and found none.

Ronan Skypes him that night, but he doesn’t mention the stone, and Adam doesn’t ask. Either he thought Adam was smart enough to already know its purpose, or he was content to let Adam figure it out for himself. He sets the chilly stone on the desk beside his bed.

The Thursday before Labor Day, Adam has a long letter waiting for him after dinner. Gansey had run back to the room, saying he needed to do something, which left Adam to lean back against the mailboxes to read the letter alone.

_hey there Nerd_

_Listen I just wanted to say, before I come up there, I miss you around here. I don’t ever say it outright, fuck, I know that’s bad, but it just feels pretty fucking obvious and you’re a smart kid, buuut. I do. I hope I don’t sound like a complete sop if I say I’ve kind of been looking forward to this visit since? Two days after you guys left? I know. pretty pitiful_.

_I’m excited to see your lameass college. I have a hard time imagining you living up there since I don’t know what anything looks like except your room. It makes my head hurt sometimes, knowing that you live somewhere I know nothing about. I realized I associated you with the church a lot, so this is new._

_Things are still weird around here, but getting more normal. Though if your bed is comfortable I might have to move in_.

The letter falls into more normal territory as he goes on; descriptions of the Barns at sunrise, what Matthew’s getting up to, what Noah’s getting up to, details of a letter Ronan got from Blue two days ago, something funny his mother said. And Adam sits there on the floor, back to the cold metal of the mailboxes, and everything feels very huge. The distance between them feels expansive, the time until he sees him tomorrow feels infinite, and the ache in his chest—immeasurable.

 _Yeah, but long story short, I miss you a fuckton, and I’m sorry that I haven’t said it until now. I hope you’ve been able to tell anyway_.

He had.

_And also I notice you haven’t been holding onto my present like I asked. Put it in your pocket or something, Parrish, goddamn_

_Ronan_

Adam doesn’t know how long he sits there, simply staring at the paragraphs of his handwriting. It doesn’t feel like that long, but he is starting to feel stiff from his position on the hard floor. With a thoughtful sigh, he folds the letter carefully back, but he doesn’t put it in the envelope. His mind is busily sorting through various ways that Ronan could know that Adam hadn’t been carrying the stone around with him. He hadn’t assumed Ronan had meant his request literally, but he had obviously been wrong. There’s no way that Ronan had asked Gansey about what Adam had done with his gift, and the idea that the stone held some sort of power that could track movement was too creepy possessive for Ronan to have done. Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—Adam’s brain does not work the same way as Ronan’s, so he has trouble imagining any other more unique possibilities. He’d have to ask him outright tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Adam pushes himself to his feet and drops the envelope into a recycling bin on his way out of the building. He reads the letter twice over as he unhurriedly makes his way back across campus to the dorms. He climbs the stairs with heavy step, and fumbles to unlock their door when he gets there.

He nearly stumbles over his own feet when he opens the door.

It should be impossible, the easy way that Ronan is sitting on his floor next to Gansey, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world, as though that’s exactly where he was meant to be. Adam’s lips part in staggered disbelief as he glances between Gansey and Ronan, back to Gansey, and then back to Ronan. Then his fingers tighten around the letter that’s still in his hand, and without needing to tell himself to, he’s crossing the room and dropping down beside Ronan. Ronan’s grip is fierce, an anchor pulling Adam to the present.

Adam gasps,  “I thought you weren’t—”

“Shut up,” Ronan mutters.

Adam’s fingers curl against the fabric at the back of his shirt. He glances at Gansey over Ronan’s shoulder and gives a strangled laugh. Then he closes his eyes and buries his face against Ronan, deep breath tearing through his lungs. And finally he pulls back, because he wants to look at Ronan, has to see that he’s still the same. His fingers press heavily to the sides of Ronan’s face, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Ronan doesn’t look the same, not exactly. Adam wonders if he’s only imagining it, though: A different pull his brows, something different about the angle of his shoulders. It must be his imagination. The effect of too many nights pulling Ronan out of his memory, too many conversations distorted by a webcam lens.

Ronan leans in, forehead against Adam’s. “Hey, Gansey, fuck off for a second, will you?”

Adam smiles. He’s still the same.

Gansey doesn’t need to be told twice. “I’ll be in the hall.”

Ronan is pulling their lips together before the door is even shut behind him, and Adam is surprised to find that this, too, is different. The careful nature of it is familiar and reminds Adam of the first time on the beach, which makes him smile, but dissimilarity of it comes in other things. The weight of his hands. The way it lingers. It isn’t bad, though. A difference born from distance, a new yearning on top of whatever had been there before. There are miles and days to cross, instead of mere inches and seconds.

“Okay, but,” Adam breathes. As he pulls back, he closes his eyes and shakes his head with the smallest smile. “Hi. You’re early.” He links his fingers together behind Ronan’s neck.

“Hey there.”

There’s a tickle of something at Adam’s shoulder, and he jumps a little before realizing with a laugh that this is also something familiar: The bristling of his hair, the sharp pokes at his skin, a prod to the side of his head above his ear. “You brought your bird to my dorm room?” he asks, grinning despite the criticism. He raises a finger to stroke her feathers. “Hi, Chainsaw.”

“She’s never gonna forgive me for leaving her for a month. There was no choice,” Ronan says, looking uncharacteristically affectionate at the sight of his pet making herself at home with his boyfriend, “As soon as she saw a suitcase…” He shakes his head. “Matthew is a boring godfather, isn’t he?” He directs this at Chainsaw and raises a hand to guide her away from plodding across Adam’s shoulders. She flaps back to the windowsill, and then Ronan’s attention is on the boy in front of him once again.

Adam grabs at his sleeve, near his shoulder, and he pulls Ronan closer to him. He tips his head to one side, intending to kiss him, but then he pauses a moment away. “Were you always planning to come early?”

“I wish I was that thoughtful. I just got impatient.”

Ronan looks a little embarrassed, and it pulls a smile, which breaks into a laugh, from Adam. “That’s good, too.”

“I’m glad you think so.” He gives a half roll of his eyes and then tips Adam’s lips back to his.

Adam is dimly aware that he should maybe be concerned about Gansey, kicked out of his own room, but it isn’t a prevalent worry, because it still feels like too soon when Ronan is sitting back with a knowing grin. He gives one last light tug at Adam’s hair before letting his hands fall away. At the sound of paper rustling, Adam looks down and Ronan’s eyes follow. He takes his letter and waves it a little in the air between them before tossing it onto Adam’s bed and leaning back. Ronan takes the stone from Adam’s desk and Adam opens his hand to take it. Ronan drops it to his open palm.

“What is it, Ronan?” he asks softly.

“One second.”

Adam’s eyes drift from Ronan to the dream object with careful interest. In his periphery, Adam sees Ronan reach into his pocket, and a moment later, Adam’s brows furrow. The stone has grown warmer and there are smudges appearing on the surface, warm colors glowing against the surface. Adam looks up, question on his lips, but then he sees what Ronan has in his own hands: A nearly identical stone, this one only a little more circular than Adam’s. A different question gets stuck in Adam’s throat as Ronan shakes his head to keep him quiet. Then Ronan sets his stone down on the floor beside him.

The smudges fade and the heat disperses in an instant.

Adam’s eyes flick to Ronan’s stone, which still appears red-tinged across the entire surface as it catches the light of the overhead fixture. Ronan picks it up with two fingers and shows Adam the lower side. This side is still grey-blue. Adam’s own rock has grown warm on either end, though the middle remains chilled.

“No way.”

Ronan closes his hand around his, and Adam’s entire stone grows warm.

“Is it—?”

Ronan seems amused at Adam’s bewilderment. Adam gestures for Ronan to place it back to the floor, and Adam sets his down also. With wonder, Adam drops three fingertips to the glassy surface and watches as three spots of glowing orange appear on Ronan’s stone. He knows they’d be heated if he were to reach over and touch it.

“Fucking cool, right?” Ronan looks pleased.

“Yes,” Adam says, more exhale than words. “You’re so…”

“Amazing?”

“You say it like it’s not true.” Adam holds his gift tightly between his fingers for a moment longer before slipping it into his pocket. “Yes. A little bit amazing.”

Gansey rejoins them some indiscernible number of minutes later as though the two of them hadn’t just been making out on his floor. He’s just as happy as Adam is to have Ronan over; Ronan pretends like he isn’t just as glad to see Gansey. Gansey knows that trick and isn’t miffed.

That night, the three of them are sitting in a circle on the floor talking about nothing when Adam finds himself nodding off. He gives Ronan’s hand a squeeze before climbing up onto his bed. Ronan asks if he wants them to go, but Adam says no. _Please stay_. Gansey turns off the overhead light and flicks on the lamp at his desk. As he pulls the blanket around him, Adam feels the dream stone, which he’d kept in his pocket even when he’d changed into sweats for bed. He closes his hand around it. Ronan, apparently having felt the change, lolls his head back to cast a smile towards Adam. Adam leans over the side of the mattress to press an upside down kiss to the edge of Ronan’s mouth. Gansey pretends to look away; however, he is unabashedly delighted.

Adam falls asleep easily, the soft murmur of his friends’ voices a comforting background noise. He’s used to Gansey padding around the room when he can’t sleep, used to him slipping out to read in the dorm lobby, used to seeing his phone glow faintly from across the room. He’s never been in Ronan’s and Gansey’s company in this situation, he’s never witnessed their insomniac companionship, but even so, this feels like something he knows. This feels right. They talk in low voices, occasionally interrupted by a lilting laugh or the sound of one of them smacking the other in the shoulder. Adam catches snippets of conversations, descriptions of the Barns, descriptions of classes. Descriptions of dreams, both objects and futures.

Patterns of heat drift around the stone in his hand.

Yes, it’s easy to fall asleep like this.

And when Ronan eventually gets into the bed beside him, Adam wakes up just enough to pull him closer and mumble something that neither of them can understand. From across the room, he hears Gansey laugh.

Getting out of bed the next morning is more difficult. Gansey had managed to schedule his first class at 11:00, but Adam had not been so lucky. His alarm goes off at 7:00. Ronan doesn’t protest verbally, but his hand is tight around Adam’s wrist as he tries to climb out around him. Adam leans in to kiss him, which seems to surprise Ronan, maybe because of Gansey’s proximity, but Adam knows for a fact that Gansey won’t be awake before his alarm goes off in two hours.

It’s a minute before Adam mumbles, “I have to get ready for class.”

“Fucking… cut. Just skip.”

“I _can’t_ ,” and Adam sounds annoyed at himself as he says it.

Ronan knows the tone and grins with a sigh. He presses lightly at Adam’s chest. “Nerd. Go on.”

By the time he’s out of the shower, Ronan is already asleep again. He finishes getting ready without waking his sleeping friends and heads off to class. He only has two classes Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and they’re both back-to-back, starting at 8:00. As his second class is finishing up, he kind of expects to walk back to his room and find Ronan still sleeping and Gansey eating cereal on his bed in his pajamas, but rather, Ronan is waiting for him outside his classroom looking disinterested.

“I can’t believe you’ve been in class for two hours, I got bored just waiting for ten minutes, Jesus Christ,” Ronan complains, but he doesn’t sound too perturbed. He grabs Adam’s hand before he can reply and tugs him towards the exit. Ronan asks him how class was, despite his seemingly inherent belief that class must have been awful.

Adam tells him, and Ronan listens.

Adam doesn’t ask where Ronan is leading him, though after a few minutes it becomes apparent that Ronan is headed towards the parking lot, where the BMW is waiting. Still, Adam doesn’t ask after the destination. Ronan drives like he knows where he’s going, and Adam lets him go.

He parks at the far end of a coffee shop parking lot, and Adam just smiles as Ronan hops out with an, “I’ll be back.” It’s Ronan’s turn to pay; they both remember. Adam waits quietly in the passenger seat and fiddles with the air conditioner. Ronan is back in hardly any time at all, and he hands Adam a cup without much thought. This was a normal routine, something they’d done a lot of in Henrietta once they got back.

Adam turns in his seat. Ronan looks back with an expectant look.

“So,” Adam says.

“So.”

“Gansey have any plans?”

Ronan laughs. “You don’t know?”

“Nah.”

“No, he didn’t say anything to me. Surely he does.”

Adam shrugs. “Well. I like just sitting with you guys.”

Ronan is quiet for a second. “Me too.”

Another moment passes before Adam says, “I think there’s Clue in the lobby.”

Ronan’s laugh is short. “Yeah, we should do that.”

Neither of them have any real desire to play Clue, but just the idea of it brings a certain kind of happiness. Noah would have suggested it, and Noah would have meant it. The moment passes, and then Adam asks after a garden that Ronan had mentioned his mother starting. Ronan had smiled, remembering a conversation he’d had with his mom. The garden wasn’t doing so great, but she kept trying. Ronan and Matthew helped, and Declan was even over once, but no, the garden wasn’t looking fantastic. But now it was a sort of joke in the home. And then Ronan asked about a Latin project-slash-presentation that Adam and Gansey had had to do together, one Adam had mentioned to Ronan last week. They’d done it all at two in the morning, the result of poor planning and too much caffeine. They’d gotten an A, though, and Gansey had nearly passed out when he saw the grade. Adam had been sure that it hadn’t been a disaster, but Gansey hadn’t known what was happening so he was left more uncertain. Ronan tells Adam about some asshole he saw at the grocery store the other day. Adam tells Ronan about a douchebag in his 100-level philosophy class.

Even with how often they communicate, working around Adam’s lack of a phone with the letters, Skype, e-mails, Adam borrowing Gansey’s phone, there’s still so much to say. Adam finds himself talking for solid minutes, uninterrupted by Ronan, telling a single story, and when he stops, he takes a deep breath. To have so much to say to Ronan, to have so much that Ronan didn’t already know—that was weird. Ronan doesn’t seem to notice the breathless way Adam finishes talking; he launches into a full-out response and then breaks into another story.

And even when they’ve finished their drinks, they continue sitting in the stationary car. They talk on and on until Ronan’s phone buzzes. He ignores it, but Adam picks it up.

 _Lunch in 10???_ from Gansey.

 _we’ll meet you there_ , Adam types. Ronan puts the car in gear, not needing Adam to say anything. He continues his story without pausing.

When they pull back into the school’s parking lot, they hesitate before getting out. Adam turns to Ronan, and with a funny sort of look on his face, Adam says, “Hey. We’re gonna be okay, aren’t we?” He says it like he’s just realizing it.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are, Parrish.”

And they are. Somewhere between the eclectic letters and the late night Skype calls, federal holidays and summer vacations, everything is fine. It’s not like Adam doesn’t feel exhausted, stretched beyond his limits some nights, staring at the empty wall above his bed; it’s not like Ronan doesn’t sometimes wake up at 2:00am reaching for something that isn’t there. But after a few tries, they figure out how to combat those things. Sometimes it’s easy as taking a deep breath; sometimes it’s a letter dropped in the mailbox in the middle of the night; and sometimes it’s reaching under the pillow to find a burst of warmth in a little grey stone, right where it shouldn’t exist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay... this is about to sound really Extra of me, but I really, really, really do need to profoundly thank everyone who has been reading this story because. holy shit. i hadn't written anything of any great substance in at least a year, maybe more like two, so this has been. a Wild Ride. it's been a highlight of my past few months, really really really. your kind words have meant the Literal world to me, i've gotten way more attention than I deserve and i'm ridiculously thankful. 
> 
> i've definitely accidentally already started writing something else, so if you're At All interested... it'd be fucking Rad if you subscribed to me or Honestly just keep poking around the ronan/adam tag, that's where it'll be. (and of course you can hmu on [tumblr](http://helengansey.tumblr.com)) i have no idea how soon i'll post it, but this has been so fun !!!! so of course i gotta do a little self-promo cuz i'd love to see u all again ❤
> 
> !!! it was so hard not to reply to every single comment I got, but Please know i treasured all of them, truly. thank u for sticking around and ?? i love all y'all ??? so much???? thank you x1000, and i'll see you again soon maybe !!!!!!


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